


Seasons: Second

by Beshter



Series: X-files Seasons [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alien Abduction, Aliens, Canon Compliant, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 133
Words: 268,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8602264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beshter/pseuds/Beshter
Summary: Dana Scully finds she is drawn further into the strange web of intrigue that surrounds Fox Mulder and the X-files. As she chooses sides in this dangerous game, she finds that it is a costly decision both to herself and to those she cares for.





	1. The Prodigal's Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully has dinner with her sister, Melissa.

Dana Scully's car air conditioner whined loudly at her. She glared at her dashboard in silent supplication. She had it scheduled for routine maintenance later in the week. When she had leased the car a year before, she hadn't expected to have to drive it back and forth to Virginia more than an hour each way. In the last month she had put more miles on the engine than she had in the last year and that wasn't including the disgusting crawl through Northern Virginia. She pulled her sedan into her parking space, feeling grimy and musty despite the cold air straining her car's motor. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into a bath and into bed, with a sandwich sufficing for her evening meal. Beside her sat the latest copy of The Journal of the American Medical Association. She could tear through it in the few hours it would take her to drift off to sleep before, bright and early the next morning, she would return to this again.

And again…and again…to more dead bodies, more perfunctory paperwork, more classes, more rules, regulations, and rigidity. In short, back to being Agent Dana Scully of the FBI Crime Lab in Quantico. In the few short weeks since she had been removed from the X-files, her life fit back into the same, predictable rhythm it had once held before Fox Mulder's name had ever been brought to her attention by Section Chief Blevins. On the days she had morning classes with the new group of Academy students, she spent her afternoons in the morgue, dissecting bodies and performing sample analysis for the cases out of the field. On her days with afternoon classes, she did the opposite, punctuating the time in between with reports that were sent to agents flung across all of the corners of the United States, doing all manner of work from child abduction, to organized crime, to anti-terrorism, to hate crimes. Though the bodies all shared the commonality of death, the cases couldn't have been more unique. And as Scully picked through each body, she found herself wondering what it was about the poor victims that drew their attention to the FBI. Were they a mother, a son, a friend? And what was the reason for their death. What sort of case were these silent people drawn from, and what were the reasons, outside of the biological, for their demise. She would never know for certain, of course. She was nothing more than an over-glorified coroner, paid by the Bureau to find the reasons their bodies expired, but not the causes behind why such expiration occurred. That wasn't her place anymore. After all, they had given her the big shot at being a real field agent. And they had taken it away from her the minute the man she knew as Deep Throat died.

Scully found herself unconsciously wiping her right hand against the twill of her lightweight slacks, her mind fluttering to Fox Mulder. What was he doing right now? Had he found anything further on his work, on the strange flask she was asked to obtain in order for his release? Had he come any further in his search for his sister, for his truths, or was he stuck, beating his head silently against the invisible walls of his bureaucratic prison, losing all hope and faith as all of his work and effort was stifled. She glanced at he watch. It was six o'clock, if he even made it home, he wouldn't be home then. Scully wanted to call him, to just check in with him to ensure that he was all right. Somehow she doubted he would take her call. Mulder's paranoia, always high at best, had ratcheted itself to such levels in the weeks since their reassignment that he pointedly refused to take even the occasional call she dropped him and hadn't responded to a single discreet email sent his way. Her few brief conversations with the Lone Gunmen, mostly with the strange but weirdly endearing Frohike, had turned up nothing in terms of Mulder and how he as doing. In Frohike's words, "the punk ass hasn't been talking to us either, the paranoid son-of-a-bitch." A case, of course, of the pot calling the kettle black. Scully at least took some comfort in knowing she wasn't the only one feeling hurt and left out. 

With a heavy sigh, she grabbed her briefcase and medical journals, slinging her load across her slight shoulders and made her way towards the front of her building and her apartment. She smiled politely at a couple out for an early evening walk in the setting twilight of summer, pushing a stroller between them that held an infant no more than six months old. Scully vaguely remember them, a young couple that seemed to be relieved that they had an FBI agent in the building with them. She had just been thrilled to have nice, normal people living around her, in a quiet, relatively nice neighborhood in DC, with a lease that was by no means cheap, but didn't eat a giant chunk out of her government paycheck either.

She was rather proud of her small apartment, the first home she had chosen for herself out of school, halfway between Quantico, where she had been working at the time, and her parent's home near Baltimore. In comparison to Mulder's Spartan, ramshackle home, which looked more like he had chosen it because of it's cheapness and ability to hold his couch and television, she had created a true place she could call comfortable. She had filled it with chintz and Crate and Barrel, had carefully painted the walls, and hung each of the pieces of art. And despite the one incident with Eugene Tooms over a year before, her home had always felt safe, secure, her place of refuge and respite, hidden away from the secrets and lies she had encountered everyday in her world on the X-files. Home was some place she didn't have to fear. She could just walk in, kick off her shoes and be.

Managing to wiggle her keys from her purse, Scully startled as she set the metal into the lock and found the door unlocked already. Odd, she wondered, as she pulled her own keys from the doorknob. Mulder obviously had a set, but if he hadn't once bothered in the past few weeks to answer one of her messages she highly doubted he would sneak into her apartment now and do something so foolish as leave the door unlocked. Deep Throat's dying words murmured in the back of her mind. Trust no one. She swallowed, glancing up and down the hallway nervously. Perhaps, her frantic brain mused, the man from the bridge that fateful night, with the close cut hair and dark, dangerous eyes might search her apartment for some evidence she may still carry. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly gone dry as she envisioned her comfortable home turned upside down by other, prying hands, walking in on them as the cold-faced, military man shot her down as easily as he had shot down Deep Throat.

Without thinking, her hand moved towards her gun at her waist. All FBI agents, even those stuck in the lab, were required to carry one. You never knew what you could run up against in a case. Juggling her medical journals to the other arm, she pulled her weapon and carefully as she could with her left hand opened the door to her apartment, her right hand already pointing the weapon inside. As she looked around she could see nothing in her apartment appeared to be touched. Her living room looked in order, but her stereo was playing softly in the background, some jazz tune she wasn't familiar with. She frowned, slowly coming around the door, to peek into the kitchen quietly, her sense of smell finally registering some sort of delicious food smell emanating there. She stepped carefully, her weapon trained at the figure inside. In the moment it took for Scully to realize that the tall, red-haired woman standing at the stove with a gun pointed at her was her own sister, Melissa Scully turned. A brilliant grin froze as she saw the semi-automatic pistol pointed, momentarily, at her own chest.

"Jesus, Missy!" Scully immediately lowered her weapon, releasing the breath she hadn't realized till then she was holding, her heart beating adrenaline into her ears. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"I can tell," Melissa's grin continued up her pretty face, as she waited for sister to put away her weapon and to set down her things. "Do you greet all of you siblings waving your weapon or just the ones who surprise you."

"I've been tempted with Bill." Scully laughed at her own paranoia as she held her arms open for the elder sister with whom she parted ways so acrimoniously a year ago. Melissa gladly stepped into her younger sister's embrace, stooping to wrap her arms around the shorter Dana in a rib-crushing hug.

"Mom said you were in town, I thought you would call." Scully pulled away, glancing at her stove where strange and good smelling foods were bubbling.

"Yeah, well it's Tuesday. We always have dinner on Tuesday, remember?" Melissa produced a key from her pocket, waving it in front of Scully. "And as I remember it was my turn to cook."

"That was a year ago, Missy." Frankly, she had nearly forgotten her weekly ritual with her sister herself. They hadn't parted on the best of terms a year before. Melissa had called her unexpectedly, announced she was moving to California in a week, begged her to help pack her belongings, and had offered her younger, more-responsible sister little comfort about her plans. To make matters worse, the two girls who had always spoken to each other, frequently, even in all of the years of college and jobs since they had moved out on their own, had not shared as much as a phone conversation in the twelve months since. Not until Melissa had decided to surprise her by breaking into her apartment and making…Scully sniffed. She eyed the pots curiously and lifted one of the lids, inhaling briefly.

"Hope you like Mexican. I learned this killer recipe for mole." Melissa immediately swept to the pans, closing the lid on the one Scully had opened and shooing her sister away. "Don't ruin it."

"Looks like brown goop," Scully teasingly grumbled, though in reality it smelled divine. Her stomach growled in loud betrayal.

"It's a spicy Mexican sauce with chili peppers and chocolate," Melissa laughed, turning to Scully's cabinets and pulling out plates and cups. "I'm making it to put over the enchiladas, turkey ones, which are warming up in the oven and then we can eat."

"You mean you've been here all day, cooking?" Scully blinked stupidly at the pots, then at her sister, feeling vaguely like her own privacy had been violated.

"No, silly, most of this stuff I did at Mom's! We had it for dinner last night. I just brought the leftovers." She chuckled, setting the kitchen table and glancing at Scully, still in her work clothes, still smelling of chemicals and the morgue. "Maybe you should take a shower, get relaxed. Dinner will wait."

"Shower?" Scully frowned momentarily down at her clothes, nodding vaguely. "Right, just…well, make yourself at home."

Not that Missy seemed to be having any trouble doing that, she reasoned, as she stumbled from her kitchen to her bedroom, shedding her jacket and shoes at her bed. She grabbed her robe, and moved towards her bath, wishing vaguely she could have had a long soak than a shower and a sandwich over…what was it again, mole? Perhaps she remembered having it when they were children in San Diego. She was never sure, Melissa had always been the more adventurous one regarding food. Regarding everything really.

She had always been secretly jealous of her tall, beautiful, freehearted sister. Scully admitted that in her more honest moments. As children Dana had related more to the boys than her girlish sister, and had preferred playing Cowboys and Indians with Charlie, or tagging around with Bill and his friends than to playing Barbie dolls and dress up with Melissa. But things change so quickly when you are young. Just a year-and-a-half younger than her sister, Dana had found one day that her brothers never-ending games of baseball interested her less and less and she took to her books, spending long summer days with her sister, wondering how it was possible that anyone could be so caught up in clothes, make up, and boys as Melissa was. By the time Dana had caught up to her elder sister in terms of clothes, make up, and boys, Melissa had moved on as well, shunning the faith of her parents, taking up new ideas, new beliefs. Melissa would tease Dana for being practical, so good, never questioning her the ideas or the beliefs she had spent a lifetime accepting. Dana, she had said, would be a hopeless nerd, never looking beyond the obvious, never searching past herself for the truths that the universe held.

In truth Dana had always felt, slightly, like she was forever trying to catch up to her sister. While Melissa danced through life with hardly a care, dropping jobs, boyfriends, and life plans with the ease that most people shed clothes, Scully was always picking up behind her. Melissa had heir mother's loving, accepting nature and she tended to play open-minded peacemaker, much like Charlie. But she also was imbued with old Ahab's love of wandering, the inability anyone had of totally tying down the old captain, his sense of adventure, of excitement, of floating around the world on nothing more than a good current and stiff breeze, trusting that he would make it home to those he loved someday. Meanwhile, Scully seemed to inherit all those things from her parents that made her the lesser sister. She had her mother's practicality, her sense of duty and loyalty, all the things that allowed her to stand lovingly by the side of a man who loved nothing more than to stand at the helm of a ship. But then she had inherited Ahab's temper, his stubbornness, and the rigid way of thinking he had, his diligence to his work. Her love of science and reason was purely her father, the logical order of a man who had devoted his life to his country and to the service. He was a man who put truth and honesty above all other things in life and that was a legacy Scully carried with her. 

But it earned her no friends and it gained her few adventures. Not like Melissa. Missy who could see into the heart of any problem and just understand it for what it was, who held her younger sister's hand anytime she even dreamed of doing something that broke the mold, and convinced her it was all right. Melissa never asked questions when she took the deep plunges, she never checked it out to see what was at the bottom of those lakes. She just did it. And she always came out fine in the end. Scully envied her sister that ability. It was something Melissa shared with Mulder. It was both commendable and terrifying all at the same time. And Scully highly doubted she could ever change that about herself.

Her fingers were wrinkled by the time she stepped out, toweling dry and wrapping her wet hair up as she slouched into her thick robe. From outside of the bedroom she could hear her sister humming to herself, flipping through something, probably one of the medical journals she had left on the couch.

"Do I need to dress for anything," Scully called as she hovered in the space between her dresser and closet.

"I'm not offended by pajamas to dinner." Melissa called, laughing. "Wear pink slippers for all I care."

"If I had pink slippers," Scully snorted, pulling out comfortable pajamas and slipping them on, tossing her robe carelessly across a chair and undoing her damp hair from the towel. "How about blow drying?"

"Is this where I point out I've seen you naked and that I don't care?"

Scully rolled her eyes and scuffled out to the living room, dripping and comfortable in her oversized pajamas. Melissa's bright, blue eyes sparkled at her over the edge of one of the purloined copies of JAMA that Scully had snagged from her tiny office at Quantico.

"Finding anything interesting?" Scully waved as it as she curled up on one end of the couch, tucking her feet comfortably under her. Melissa, despite her nature, was never and idiot, and had always found her younger sister's medical studies fascinating.

"You seem to be very interested in gene therapy and genetic testing." Melissa pulled up a sticky note that Scully had used to mark her place, a bright pink one with the scribbled words "For M."

Interested? It had been her private obsession since the minute Deep Throat had died in her arms. "I'm doing some research for a friend, for some work we are doing for the Bureau."

"Ahhh," Melissa nodded sagely. "I don't know it feels like such a violation, messing with things that nature never intended for humanity to alter."

"I'm sure nature never intended for humanity to increase its life expectancy either, but once you let the genie from the bottle, you can't put it back again." Scully offered defensively.

"But they aren't discussing longer and healthier lives, Dana." Melissa frowned as she tossed the large magazine aside. "They are talking about altering the building blocks of all of creation in the name of disease prevention."

"Should we rely then on copper encrusted crystals and ancient Indian shamans to help us ward off cancer and AIDS then?" It was a low blow, Scully knew it, and she had meant it to be, anything to deflect Melissa from an argument on this very subject, to move her away from the dangerous topic of extra-terrestrial, bio-engineered viruses carried in altered bacteria,and used in government experiments, the nature of which remained a mystery to Scully.

Some of the sparkle dimmed in Melissa's laughing eyes, her pretty mouth tightening a fraction. "I didn't say that any of those things would cure AIDS and cancer. But they are at least more natural and do less damage than what they are proposing there." She pointed towards the magazine. "And even you can't argue with that, Dana."

No, she couldn't. "I'm not here to ague anything with you, Missy," she sighed, yawning widely. "It's just been a long day at work, that's all." She tried to look as apologetic and drained as possible, not exactly hard when she felt as tired as she did. "What's this about Mexican food?"

Her sister knew when to leave things be. Her smile was firmly back in place and she was up and bustling in Scully's orderly but small kitchen. "I hope you like it. I learned it from a woman at the home I was staying at, Lupe."

"Where were you at again?" Scully settled at the table, watching as Melissa began opening pans, reaching for the plate in front of Scully and quickly filling it with spicy, cheese covered food.

"I started Cambria, at least for the first bit. It's this artist town, by San Simeon and Hearst Castle. You remember the Castle, don't you?"

"Is that the place that looked like a Spanish cathedral stuck in the middle of no where?" Scully had recalled many hot, sweaty family vacations, with four kids pilled into the family station wagon.

"Yeah, where Charlie got sick on grape soda all over a piece of priceless Roman marble." Melissa laughed fondly, setting the plate of food in front of Scully and reaching for her own. "One of the girls we knew in junior high lives in Cambria now and I spent some time with her. Then it was to Berkeley for a while and then to San Diego to visit Bill and Tara. And after a while of all to familiar, naval domestic bliss, I decided to head north again."

"Bill finally got on your nerves?" Scully grinned around a mouthful of turkey enchilada and the warm, spicy, slightly bitter brown sauce.

"Bill is all right if you know how to deal with him." Melissa shrugged as she sat across from her. "Tara mellows him out a lot. I like her. We bonded while I was there."

"Glad she bonded with someone," Scully mumbled guiltily. She was the first to admit she hadn't gone to any great length to endear herself to her only sister-in-law.

"She's lonely, you know. Her family lives far away and she's not used to the military life like we were." Melissa, always the diplomat, Scully doubted she would ever say true ill against anyone. "Anyway, after Bill's I went up to Seattle for a while. Mom says you just got back from there."

"Yeah, I had a case there a couple of months ago. Murdered jet propulsion scientists in a lab out there."

"That was you?" Melissa's burst out, jaw half hanging open, forkful of food hanging over her plate. "That was all over the news out there. They said the FBI was involved, but I had no idea that was my little sister."

Scully allowed a brief smile, shrugging lazily as her fork picked at the food on her plate. "Yeah, well I didn't know you were there to call. Perhaps we could have gotten together."

She hadn't meant it to be another jab at her sister, but Melissa took it that way all of the same. She set her fork down on her plate carefully, studying her food briefly. "You're still angry at me for leaving, aren't you?"

"Missy, I wasn't angry," Scully began.

"Yes you were," Melissa replied, propping an elbow on the table and leaning her face against her hand. "You thought I was abandoning everyone."

"It's your life." Scully stabbed viciously at her enchilada. The fork stuck in the contents, standing upright on her plate. She let it stay there, standing ridiculously.

"And you are angry because you felt abandoned by everyone while you stayed here, good, little Dana, and did you duty?" Melissa didn't say it to be snide. In fact as her calm blue eyes regarded Scully's own, she looked sad and sorry.

"Melissa, if this were the first time you had up and run off like that, I perhaps would have been angrier, but…" Scully sighed, staring at the fork in her food, thinking of her past year, of her loss of Ahab, of her loss of Jack, of her loss of the X-files and Mulder. 

"I needed you this year," she finally admitted. "You know, when we were growing up, you always came to me to be your cover person, because I was reliable, I was dependable. And you could run around, finding yourself, wherever that was. I always was so sure of who I was, so certain. It never occurred to me that there would ever be a point in my life when I would ever question it, when I would have my life be questioned in such a way. And the one person I knew would understand, the one person who I could turn to and you were busy finding you inner chi somewhere, incommunicado, without a letter, a phone call, anything."

She chanced a glanced upwards towards her sister, expecting to see anger, even irritation. She hadn't expected to see her sister look regretful, much less apologetic. Across the scrubbed, wooden surface, Melissa reached a hand out to her, palm up, fingers extended. Scully stared at it for long moments, before reaching her own small hand to take it, feeling her fingers curled into her sister's longer ones tightly.

"I'm sorry, Dana," she replied, her voice thick with emotion. "Mom told me some of what you've been through…about Dad, and work, and how you lost that person you used to date."

"Jack," Scully supplied automatically.

"I wish I could have been there for you," she continued. "I didn't know that I would be gone so long. And I didn't mean to lock you all out of what was going on. To be honest, I just didn't think about it. I had my own personal questions to answer, my own insights to find. And not all of us can find them at the end of a microscope, Dana. Some of us have to search for them outside of ourselves, to the experiences and people we meet and the truths they have to tell us."

It sounded like something Mulder would say, Scully thought weakly, as she squeezed her sister's fingers tightly. "I didn't say you had to find your truths at the end of a microscope. I'm just saying you could have picked up a pay phone, written a letter…. something."

"I could have," Melissa acknowledged. "And I'm sorry I didn't." A small, knowing look quirked her mouth upwards, "But you'll forgive me anyway, right?"

"Don't I always," Scully laughed, letting go of her sister's hand, and pulling the fork from out of her meal. "After all, I only get the one sister."

"Even if she believes in crystals and mantras and everything that makes Dana Scully's logical mind screech into flights of dubious protestation." Melissa teased as she returned to her own food.

"Well," Scully shrugged, "I've had a lot of experience in the last year or so trying to think a bit more open mindedly. Mind you, I still don't believe that waving a stone over a person's head will cure their headaches, but…"

"And how did Dr. Dana get so open minded?"

"I've had to be in the last year or so," Scully shrugged. "The division they had me in specialized in unexplained cases."

"I remember that," Melissa looked thoughtful as she swallowed. "Something about aliens, wasn't it?"

"Amongst other things," Scully shrugged, tucking into her food again.

"And you had that partner you said was cute. What was his name again?"

"Mulder," Scully smiled ruefully. She had told her sister he was cute…and her mother…and Ellen. She prayed to God that never got back to Mulder. He'd become insufferable.

"Mom said they transferred you back to Quantico." Melissa sensed she was touching a dangerous area. "What happened?"

How much of the truth behind Deep Throat and the last, frantic days of the X-files could she tell her sister? How much of it should she tell her sister? After all, Melissa was as open-minded as anyone in the Scully family could be. And yet, how could Scully even begin to explain what she had seen in that flask, the strange virus that she had discovered. She couldn't explain to herself the things she had seen.

"It was politics," Scully replied simply. It was about as clear an answer as she could manage. "Mulder doesn't play the political game well, and well, he lost."

"And you along with him?"

"Sort of," Scully sighed heavily. "My record isn't as hurt as his is. They just sent me back to what I was doing before?"

"And they didn't with him?"

"No." Scully thought of Mulder, in some crappy hotel room somewhere, listening to conversations about beer and strip joints and slowly crawling the walls of his own, private prison. "He hasn't made a lot of friends at the FBI, let's just say."

"Except for you." Melissa always was perceptive. "You miss him, don't you?"

"Miss Mulder?" Scully hated to admit she did. "Yeah, I guess I more worry about him. Mulder isn't what I would call a people person and his work means a lot to him. And to be honest, it means a lot to me as well. I mean…cutting up corpses and finding what killed them is one thing. But the work I did there, the ability I had to use my skills as a scientist to explain these things that the FBI so easily writes off as strange, abnormal, and crazy, it made me feel useful. Like I was doing something that actually made a difference to someone, that I wasn't just performing the routine."

"Like you were meant for something more than the ordinary in this life?" Melissa nodded wisely. "I know the feeling, believe me I do? Why do you think I went to California, Dana? Just to give Mom more gray hairs and to run around like I was a teenager once again?"

"Well…yeah," Scully replied impishly as her sister rolled her eyes.

"There is so much more to this life than the simple explanations our society wants to give us, Dana. Our faith, our parents, our government, everyone creates a nice, orderly world by which we rule our lives. And for some of us, that isn't enough. We want to see what is going on outside of the neat borders of our box, we want to delve into those strange shades of gray and find what is lurking there. And it's OK to want to find those answers, to discover why that is. You and I are looking for the same things, Dana. Just because I approach it from my angle and you approach it from yours doesn't make either of our searches any less valid."

Scully stared at her elder sister for the longest of moments, wondering quietly to herself when had the sister she had known all of her life morph into the man she had been partnered with for the last year. "You and Mulder would so get along." She grinned madly at her sister.

"Is he single?" Melissa winked as she took another bite of enchilada.

"More or less," Scully could never be sure. It seemed Mulder's endless string of pretty, silly office workers had lessened somewhat in the months since they had begun working together. At least the nasty phone messages left at the office had dropped off. However his predilection for leaving his porn all over the place hadn't lessened in the slightest. "Mulder I don't think has a lot of time in his life for serious relationships."

"Pity." Melissa shrugged casually. "No wonder you two get along so well, you sound like you are both workaholics. Two peas in a pod?"

"I think I'm just more understanding of his idiosyncrasies. After all, I grew up with you."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence," Melissa snorted. "Friends again?"

"Always," Scully smiled brightly at her older sister. "Just don't sneak into my apartment again?"

"Not when my baby sister carries a gun, I won't," Melissa agreed readily. "Finish your dinner, it's getting cold."

"Yes, Mom!" Scully obliged her sister with a large forkful of homemade enchilada.


	2. Mrs. Spooky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully disturbs her training class.

It was her last class of that day, blessedly her smallest and easiest to manage. They gathered quietly in the hallway outside of the downstairs morgue, whispering quietly amongst themselves or watching the shiny, brushed steel doors with speculative worry. Unlike Scully's other classes, directed more towards the raw FBI cadets learning the particulars of investigation, this bunch of seven was made up exclusively of those interested in forensic pathology. All of them had gone to medical school and thus had of course seen a dead body, had at least cut up one sometime in their first year of medical training. But none had ever truly performed an autopsy before and she surmised that was the cause for the furtive looks and the overly cool demeanors. The sound of her rubber athletic shoes squelching against concrete caused them all to turn in unison to stare at her, the insanely petite red-head with the cool demeanor, her white coat and green scrubs obviously marking her as their instructor. They all watched her varying expressions of nervousness, eagerness, and anxiety as she stopped in front of the large double doors.

Was she ever this young, she wondered, staring at them? She had to have been and not so terribly long ago either. Had she been as eager then as they were now, worried about pleasing her instructors, of passing out when the first incision was made? She didn't remember looking as tense as the tall blonde in the front of the group, pen ready and notebook out, hanging on every word Scully said before she even entered the autopsy bay.

Like her own instructors, Scully felt it best to try to put a friendly face on it. "Hello, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully, and welcome to your first class in forensic autopsy." She smiled warmly to them all, despite the grimness of their surroundings, especially towards the cool blonde who looked ready to snap her pen at any second. "You are here because you all have an interest in the field of forensic pathology, a key skill necessary in a wide range of investigative fields, from our very own FBI to the Centers for Disease Control. I can't say it's a popular field." She waved a hand expansively around the small group, who all looked shyly from one to another. "But then that's why our skills are in such high demand. After all, who really wants to cut up dead bodies?"

There was a nervous tittering from among the troops. Even the blonde relaxed her death grip on her Bic and granted Scully a shy smile.

"Now, if you'll follow me?" She ushered the lot of them into the large, expansive autopsy bay, with several tables arranged for multiple autopsies at a time. She shuffled the small group to the far end of the room, as she moved towards the draped and shrouded medical table at the far end. Every single one of their eyes followed her as she pulled the subject to them, their eyes following the still form under the green, operating sheets with silent, fixed gazes.

"Now, I assume you all have at least performed one autopsy in your medical career, even if that wasn't what you called it at the time." She looked across the small span. "As first year med students, you all took Anatomy, correct?"

In unison the entire group silently nodded, their eyes never leaving the shrouded form behind Scully. They all looked like stunned deer, caught in the headlights of a giant, Mack truck. It was somewhat endearing to see them this horrified by death, still frightened by what lay beneath the linen sheet. If only it could remain that way forever as a medical examiner.

"Well, if you remember those bodies you examined in your Anatomy classes were, in fact natural deaths or ones related to illness." She smiled at them all, trying to get the to relax. "They are people who, for the most part, died happily in their beds or in hospital rooms, knowing their time was coming, and who donated their bodies to science upon death in the hopes that their demise would instruct you all and inspire you all to find the cures for the diseases that they died of." It was the same sort of speech she had been given when she had been the eager student, much like they were.

"Today is different. Today we are examining not the bodies of those who lived their lives and expired with the knowledge they were dying, but rather those who died under circumstances that have been deemed questionable. Everyday, thousands of people die in crimes across the country, some with clear cut motives, methods, and suspects. More often than not we are faced with cases that lack any of those."

Such as the X-files, Scully thought for the briefest of seconds. She pushed that thought aside and continued with her introduction. "Our job as forensic pathologists is to do what the detective or agent in the field of investigation can not do. We study the body, we look for what evidence the corpse possess, and if anything of that evidence can clearly paint for us a picture of not only why a person died, but lead us towards motive and suspects." Backing carefully backwards on her rubber-soled shoes, she turned towards the body and gently folded back the top of the sheet, exposing the face of a middle-aged, white male beneath.

She flipped on the microphone above her autopsy table, the one that allowed her to record all of her observations for later note taking. It was also convenient in these classes to pass around to her students for use in their later studies. "The subject is Charles Farnsworth, age fifty-four, of Manhattan, New York. Mr. Farnsworth had a long and successful career at Goldman Sachs, was in good health and was looking forward to early retirement. But then he was found dead in his vehicle outside of work, cause unknown."

Scully glanced down at Farnsworth's face, now a dull gray, slack in death and stiff with the cold in which he had been stored. He was hardly looked the sort of man who would die under suspicious circumstances, a businessman. Probably had a home somewhere outside of the city of New York, a wife of many years and kids in college. He looked like he was looking forward to retirement, to wait for his children to get around to figuring out what to do with their lives and produce grandkids for him while he took turns circling the local golf-courses, drinking too much scotch and smoking too many cigars. Much like her father would have had he lived. Much like Deep Throat should have? The man's image, for the briefest of moments, flickered to that of Mulder's former informant, his eyes opening wide as he stared up at her, bright with hidden secrets. His lips, blue and ashen parted, his voice deep as a sepulcher, dark as the grave. "You and Mulder are the only ones who can bring it to light."

Some of the last words he said to her. Her heart leapt somewhere in her throat, as she stopped, staring open mouthed at the body, blinking her eyes hard against what her brain saw, afraid to open them again to find that her mind wasn't playing tricks on her. She could hear the students' shuffle and shift nervously to the side. Scully cracked her eyes open just enough to see Charles Farnsworth staring back up at her, still very much dead, and in no way resembling the Deep Throat. She felt her blood pounding somewhere in her ears, as she swallowed hard against the panic in her throat. It was all in her head, she realized, too much stress, too much worry, and all of the unresolved questions swirling around the death of Deep Throat and the closing of the X-files. She shook her head, glancing back towards the students.

"Any guesses as to why his body was brought in to look at?" Move past this she urged herself, shake it off. It is your last class of the day and you can head home, make tea, curl up in bed, and forget this long day. She glanced around the gaggle of hesitant faces, picking out an intelligent looking, girl hanging towards the back of the small crowd. "Any observations?"

"Well…" The girl stared hard at the face, scrunching her almond-shaped eyes in concentration. "His skin tone is a bit…grayer than you should expect in a body."

Scully turned to examine the body for a split second before shaking her head negatively at the girl. "Nope, nothing to do with his physical state. As pathologist, before we begin cracking open the body we have to ask what was the state of the crime scene? How was the victim found and why was he brought in." As she spoke, she took a felt tip pen from a tray table to the side, filled with tools and scalpels, all the accoutrements of her job. She began speaking as she carefully outlined the forehead of the man's skull, his skin barely moving under the pressure the pen exerted under it.

"This man as I said was found dead in his car, outside of his own offices. Now, that in and of itself would normally be a matter for the NYPD, except that Mr. Farnsworth was involved in an SEC investigation of an investment firm he worked with ten years ago before going to Goldman. Due to his involvement in an ongoing, federal investigation, the FBI was asked to look into the possible suspicious nature of his death. Given that Mr. Farnsworth was in seemingly perfect health at the time of his death, no heart conditions, what sort of clues might we look for?"

For the next half an hour Scully batted back ideas and suppositions with her class, effectively distracting them from the matter at hand, the fact she was about to dissect a body in front of them. They were a smart bunch, eager, quick on their feet and knowledgeable as doctors. Better than she usually found out of her bunch of FBI Academy cadets, few of them had ever seen a dead body, let alone thought about cutting one up. There she usually had the faint-hearted or green-gilled within seconds of her uncovering the body, here she expected her students to at least make it through to the cranial cut. That was usually the most disturbing for anyone, short of a neurosurgeon, and even the hardiest of medical students occasionally had to take a deep breath and a quiet moment before carrying on.

The body was prepped. Scully adjusted her working goggles and moved behind the head, reaching for the high-speed bone saw, preparing it for the first incision. "It is advantageous to begin an autopsy with removal of the cranium." She glanced sideways at her students, waiting to see who would be the most likely to go down first. So far even the hesitant, young girl in the back look ready for the plunge, her small mouthed pursed determinedly. Scully continued. "The cranium is opened with a horizontal division an inch above the eyebrow ridges."

As her fingers reached for the high-powered saw, she paused. Farnsworth's face flickered in front of her, for just a moment, and she stopped, setting down the saw, and staring at the prepared cranium, at the felt tip lines along his gray skin. She could hear the students shuffle again nervously, as the eager blonde girl cleared her throat loudly, her voice soft and hesitant. "Something wrong?"

Scully blinked up at her briefly, before glancing down at the body again, at the man who wasn't Deep Throat. Who wasn't the man whose secrets and plans, the plots he had embroiled herself and Mulder in all died with him.

"What this man imagined, his dreams, who he loved, saw, heard, remembered, what he feared. Somehow it's all locked inside this small mass of tissue and fluid." All locked away and gone, buried somewhere, the truth buried with him.

The girl spoke again, less fearful now, and more worried. "Are you okay, Agent Scully? You kind of sounded…a little spooky."

It was the word "spooky" that caught her attention. Scully's eyes flew to the girl's innocent comment, color flushing her pale face as she regarded the student with a hard glare. The girl immediately recoiled, breaking eye contact to suddenly find herself engrossed in her notes, her own pale cheeks turning a bright, crimson red.

"Spooky," Scully uttered the word as if the girl had just called her "bitch". It was Mulder's nickname, the moniker that had been bandied around about him before it had even become an insult. And perhaps Mulder had rubbed off so much on her that even she was beginning to take on the misty, ominous quality he had once shown her a year ago when she had walked into his basement office, fresh-faced and innocent to all of this. She immediately began to kick herself for turning on the girl so harshly, for coming down on her for what, in her mind, must be an innocent enough observation. After all, how many of these kids actually knew anything about the X-files, let alone her involvement in it.

"Perhaps it sounds 'spooky' to you," Scully began, softening her harsh glare with a mild smile. "But to this man's family it isn't spooky in the least. He was alive once, full of life, of memories, of things that were taken away from him either by natural or unnatural causes. As easy as it is for us as pathologists to look upon these victims as simply a puzzle to solve, as evidence in an on going investigation, these were living, breathing people once. And we should respect the dead as we would have had they been living patients under our care." She shot the young blonde a pointed, though far from harsh look. "We can't ever forget our own humanity as we delve further and further into this. It's something important all of us need to remember in this field."

Especially, she thought gloomily, herself. The more she got pulled into whatever truth Fox Mulder dug up, would she be able to cling to the humanity she professed to these students? She had no way of knowing that and no clear answers to give herself. With Fox Mulder assiduously avoiding even the most well meaning of inquiries, and her days filled with bright-eyed FBI recruits and future medical examiners, Scully highly doubted she would ever truly find her answers anytime soon.

"Now," she reached for the electric saw once again, "I will begin the incision above the eyebrow ridge. You might want to stand back a bit, this does get messy." She pressed the button that powered the electric blade briefly, testing its speed, as somewhere in the back of her gathering of students someone gasped in a decidedly unhealthy way. As she lowered the saw to Charles Farnsworth's skin and began to cut through tissue and bone, she could hear the gasp turn into a gurgle and lurch as someone turned quickly and rushed towards the doors of the morgue, choking and coughing as they went.

Well, there was one in every class, Scully shrugged, as she continued to cut, even with doctors. At least they weren't as easy to gross out as the cadets.


	3. Snubbing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully feels snubbed by Mulder.

For the first time since she had met Fox Mulder, Scully had to take the elevator up towards his desk. She wended her way carefully through the maze of desks and cubicles on the floor, avoiding the eyes of other agents who all glanced curiously at the unfamiliar, red haired woman who moved confidently past them to the one desk she had been told belonged to him. Even if she hadn't been told explicitly where it was she couldn't have missed it from the other desks. The giant clutter of unread files, an neatly folded copy of the Lone Gunmen's latest offering, and the single, framed photograph of Samantha Mulder all hovered around a work space that barely looked lived in. It felt as if Mulder simply used the area to dump his things, a place to allow his work to clutter as he ignored it, or at least pretended to ignore it, hoping against hope he could be anywhere but where he was. It was depressing looking, Scully thought, as she pulled one green sticky note from a stack that found itself hiding in the recesses behind Mulder's computer monitor. She wrote a single word, "Nixon," across the surface and taped the tacky side over the smiling face of Mulder's sister, before placing the frame down, face first, on his desk. It was the signal he wanted. Such a silly game, this covert dance of notes and re-arranged picture frames. Scully glanced at the agents sitting at there desks, none of them paid her so much as a single, curious glance as she moved back past them off the floor, and back the way she came. 

No one cared that Special Agent Dana Scully, who should have been in Quantico, who shouldn't be discoursing with Agent Mulder in the least bit, had just paid a random visit to his desk. They didn't care because, Scully realized, it wasn't news. No one cared, not their superiors, not the government, not the shadowy figures that had killed Deep Throat and had closed down the X-files, shutting down Mulder's work. No one cared because they thought they had won. One, single visit from a person who had shared so much work with Mulder wasn't enough to set off alarm bells with anyone. At least, Scully hoped it didn't.

She wouldn't have been in the Hoover Building at all that day if it hadn't been for a rush order on an autopsy and a murdered DOJ suspect, a man who Justice had been building a case off of for three years. Now the Justice Department was screaming for answers, and the FBI was scrambling to find out reasons, motives, why? The body had ended up in Scully's lap. After her work was done, she had neatly handing over the case file to the agent-in-charge, an Agent Owens, who didn't seem to like the answer she had for him. There boy had been killed by someone who could get close to him, someone he trusted enough at least to allow them to come up behind him and fire directly through the back of his skull, opening his face up on one side as the bullet exited above his left eye. Gruesome, yes, but it was those sort of facts she as a forensic pathologist was supposed to provide for the agents in the field. If she admitted it to herself, she was vaguely amused that her findings had given Owens grim, pained look that had crossed his face, like someone had just taken away his favorite toy and smashed it in front of his eyes. At least she reasoned in a fit of lack of charity, someone else was having a bad time closing up their cases within the FBI. Clearly Mulder was never alone in bumps in the road that came up with his cases. Though, she reasoned, as she wandered back through the halls, away from Mulder's desk, she doubted Owens's problem of having a dead suspect clearly matched Mulder's problem of government conspiracies, biological engineering on humans, and shadowy figures willing to kill to hide that evidence. Still, it had felt good for once to see someone else having a bad day.

Scully smoothly turned the corner from bullpen where Mulder's new desk sat, avoiding a crowd of murmuring agents in the hallway as above the fray a familiar, dark head strategically made its way through. A broad smile leapt to her face. It had been weeks since she had spoken to him and he looked…tired. Bored, exhausted, and lost in his own world as his brooding eyes determinedly looked elsewhere but at the chattering agents all around him. Still, it thrilled her to even see him in this foul mood, and she called to him as his shoulder brushed within inches of her own diminutive height.

"Good afternoon, Agent Mulder." She hoped it was as casual a greeting as Mulder could have hoped for in what she knew would the sort of setting that would start his paranoia kicking into high gear. She had at least expected a polite reciprocation, a surprised glance followed by a friendly smile and a murmured reply. Perhaps, if she had gotten really lucky, he might even have stopped and spoken to her, showed that at one time they had been partners, even friends. She hadn't expected for him to brush past her as if he hadn't even heard her speak. Scully watched his retreating back. Not once did he glance toward her or even acknowledge he had heard her voice. Instead he turned the corner, his step never hesitating as he did it.

Did he just not hear her or was he really determined to show completely that had utterly no contact with her whatsoever? Perhaps, she thought with brief dejection, he was done with having her watching over his shoulder, cautioning him at ever turn, as she spoke the warnings and common sense he so often ignored. Maybe Mulder no longer had room in his quest for the scientific skepticism of Dana Scully. Why didn't she just admit it, she kicked herself. It hurt to be snubbed. It hurt even worse when it came from Mulder.

She turned down the hallway, hiding her hurt feelings behind the mask of cool competency that was her habit, the easy mask she slipped into when the rest of the world was falling apart.


	4. Loss of Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully finally gets Mulder to speak to her.

The note she left behind on Mulder's desk with the single word, "Nixon" had been appropriate. The Watergate Hotel was a symbol in Washington DC of all sorts of covert activities and clandestine lies. She had only been a small girl, just ten years old the year that Richard Nixon had left office under a cloud of scandal. She couldn't remember caring about the entire situation that much at the time, except that it had interrupted her television viewing for the better part of a week. It wasn't till she was much older that she even began to truly understand what the word "Watergate" meant in American politics and how it would forever be linked with scandal, cover-ups, deception, and the need to hide the truth from the American public. How appropriate, she mused, that Mulder had chosen this place in all of Washington to meet. She was sure he hadn't given the notion much thought. It was merely a place with a large enough parking garage where they would meet in private without the prying eyes of half of Washington around them. Despite the outrageous parking fee, and the distinctly ominous smells coming from one dark corner of the underground, concrete bunker, Scully had to agree. No one would care one way or the other if two well-dressed, professional people met and chatted.

Not that it mattered to anyone if she and Mulder met and chatted, Scully reflected sourly as something in the distance scuttled in a very unnatural fashion. She shrugged her shoulder in on herself, pacing the floor in front of her car back and forth, her heels echoing loudly in the large, concrete space. By all rights, after that mornings snub by Mulder, she had been half tempted to not show up for this clandestine meeting. In reality she would have rather just called it a day, returned to her Georgetown apartment and nursed her injured pride by ignoring the large stack of articles she meant to read for Mulder. She could finish the novel she had set aside in favor of searching for more information on government research into gene therapy, she could watch a movie rather than trying to cruise through the internet, looking up information on prominent doctors in the field. Scully could be doing anything that moment, except standing in a dark parking garage, waiting for Mulder to perhaps show up.

If he chose to show up at all, she reasoned darkly. He hadn't even bothered to acknowledge her existence earlier that day. Why would he bother with showing up for a sticky note summons left on his desk? It wasn't as if he had paid attention to a single one of her innocent requests about him and what he was doing, her efforts to check in with him in over a month. It was out of sheer desperation she had left the note earlier, hoping he would come just so she could make sure, with her own eyes, he was doing well, that he was continuing the quest, that he wasn't giving up. So that she didn't feel the idiot for giving up so much of her time, effort, and energy looking for answers he himself didn't care enough to look for anymore.

Somewhere above her a large, metal door slammed, and heavy footsteps sounded on concrete. Scully turned, hopeful, her eyes straining in the dark to see who the tall figure was. A man in a trench coat, that much she could make out, but in DC where men of great power worked, such a coat was fairly common sight. For half a wild moment, she thought of Deep Throat and wondered if this was the sort of hidden, shadowy place he would have taken Mulder, moving out of the shadows with his half-truths, offering Mulder the secrets of the universe, one small morsel at a time.

She sighed with relief when Mulder's sardonic, dry voice called from the distance. "Four dollars for the first hour of parking is criminal. What you got better be worth at least forty-five minutes."

Trust Mulder to be a cheapskate when it came to his personal time. Despite her own hurt just hearing his dry humor caused Scully to break out in a huge smile. She had missed that, she realized, his wit, even his moodiness. She hadn't realized till that moment just how much she missed it.

"You know, Mulder," she laughed at herself briefly, feeling idiotic just for thinking this. "From... from back there, you looked like him."

"Him?" Mulder frowned in confusion, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his trench coat, skeptical.

"Deep Throat," she replied simply.

Her answer agitated Mulder, who paced around her towards one of the tall, concrete support pylons set in the middle of the floor, his steps managing to convey both anger and indifference as they echoed through the giant space. "He's dead, Scully. I attended his funeral at Arlington through eighty-power binoculars from a thousand yards away." He spun on her, a glimmer of hope lurking in what otherwise was the most dispirited expression she had ever seen on Fox Mulder. "Now, the picture frame was turned down, you wanted to talk. What have you found?"

Found, her mind repeated blankly. Must she have found something to warrant his undivided attention? "I wanted to talk, but I haven't found anything."

It wasn't the answer he wanted to hear and she felt sorry for it. But what choice had he given her really? Her requests to speak with him had remained unanswered, her efforts to even gain his attention were ignored, and short of demanding he meet her in some shadowy hiding space just to exchange pleasantries on the weather, Scully didn't believe she'd have ever gotten him to pay attention to her.

Two rows over, someone started a car, and flipped their headlights on them, flooding them both with light. Scully turned towards it, shielding her eyes as she blinked, as instinctively Mulder moved closer to her, leaning over her in that way he had that was both comforting and frightening. She turned back to glance up at him.

"It's dangerous for us to have this little chat," he murmured, clearly angry that she had called him out for so little. "We must assume we're being watched."

If she hadn't spent a year getting used to Mulder and his paranoia, Scully would have thought such a comment out of him was a sign he was seriously mentally disturbed. She wasn't ruling it out for him, but she at least knew this was much more his standard operating procedure.

"Mulder," she began in a long-suffering sigh, "I haven't seen any indication…"

He waved her off angrily, cutting off her words. "No, no, of course not. These people are the best."

Of course, Scully rolled her eyes, biting her tongue briefly as she counted to three, slowly. When she spoke again, she tried, desperately, to keep her irritation to a dull roar as Mulder paced restlessly in front of her. "I've taken all of the necessary precautions. I have doubled back over my tracks to make sure that I haven't been followed and no one has ever followed me." It wasn't exactly true. She had been careful, but perhaps not to the Mulder level of true, paranoid threat. "The X-Files have been terminated, Mulder. We have been reassigned. I mean, what makes you think they care about us anymore anyway?"

And there it was, she realized, she had said it. She had given voice to the thought that had plagued her all day, and it hit Mulder as surely as if she had shot him in the chest. His gaze registered first hurt, then anger, then a cool detachment, as he paced away from her in irritation. "So why have you bothered to come here covertly?"

His tone was calm, but his words were accusing, and she wondered if it had been a mistake in even trying to reach out to him. "Because I realized that it was the only way that you would see me."

"So what do you want?" His question was flippant and cool, almost as if he didn't care that she worried about him, that she wondered if he was all right, that she just wanted to make sure for herself that the closing of the X-files wasn't tearing apart his drive, his spirit, the passion that made him as bold and as brilliant as he had been the first days he had walked into his office. So far, nothing in his manner reassured her that any of those things she had seen in Fox Mulder in their year together remained. All she saw was a man angry and resentful, caught up in the loop of his own dark brooding. Gone was the shinning brilliance, the almost blinding light of his belief. Perhaps they had beaten him, she wondered with dismay as he stalked the concrete in front of her, moving to lean against the support column as he dejectedly studied his own feet.

She threw up her hands, wondering where to start. "To know that you're all right." She thought of him in the hallway that day and the fact he didn't even acknowledge her presence. "Mulder, you passed me today within a foot, but you were miles away."

At least he had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "They've got me on electronic surveillance. White-bread cases, bank fraud, insurance fraud, health care swindles." He sounded so bored and frustrated. She could almost feel his depression swell to her and rise up through the soles of her feet, threatening to swallow her.

"Mulder," she sighed, crossing slowly to his slumped figure. "I know that you feel frustrated, that without the Bureau's resources, it's impossible for you to continue..."

"No, it..." He threw up his hands, sliding down the wall much as an angry twelve-year-old would, sitting on the dirty, oily concrete, and resting his arms on his upraised knees.

"Well, what then?" She flashed at him angrily, all sympathy and compassion overridden by her anger with him for ignoring her these past weeks and the efforts she had taken personally to try and further his work from outside of the Bureau's resources. "When the bureau first shut us down, you said that you would go on for as long as the truth was out there. But I no longer feel that from you."

She had heard him on the other end of that phone the fateful night he had called and told her the X-files were closed. He had told her, had promised her that he wouldn't give up, not as long as the truth was out there to find. And now, as he sat gloomily on the floor, staring into the shadows surrounding the parking garage, he looked as if he had done just that. The FBI hadn't just shut Mulder down, they had destroyed him, had killed whatever it was in him that drove him, that fueled his passions. Everything she feared for Mulder, for the truth, for the X-files looked as if it were coming horribly true.

"Have you ever been to San Diego?" Mulder asked, absently.

For a laughable moment Scully wondered if the FBI had managed to take Mulder's eidetic memory as well. She blinked at him, astonished for a moment, wondering when he had forgotten that she had spent a good portion of her childhood there. "Yeah?"

"Did you check out the Palomar observatory?"

Unsure where he was going with the question, she shook her head. "No." Palomar was located out in the deserts to the east of San Diego, well away from the city center and the naval base where she and her family lived.

It didn't seem to faze Mulder. "From 1948 until recently it was the largest telescope in the world. The idea and design came from a brilliant and wealthy astronomer named George Ellery Hale. Actually, the idea was presented to Hale one night. While he was playing billiards, an elf climbed in his window and told him to get money from the Rockefeller Foundation for a telescope."

An elf, Scully wondered sympathetically, as finally she allowed herself to feel sorry for her partner. She knelt down beside him, sitting back on her heels, refusing to dirty her suit with whatever was on the floor as she regarded him finally at eye level. "And you're worried that all your life, you've been seeing elves?"

"In my case," Mulder sighed heavily. "Little green men."

She silently sighed as she realized what this was about. Dr. Werber's tape of Mulder's hypnosis suddenly came to her mind and his last, agonizing comment on the tape. "I want to believe." He wanted to believe what his memory told him was true. He wanted to believe his sister's mysterious disappearance wasn't a strange fluke of a child's imagination, a way for an angry boy to confront a truth he couldn't understand. He wanted to believe all of his work over the years with the X-files was not a waste of his life or hers.

"But, Mulder, during your time with the X-Files, you've seen so much."

"That's just the point," he countered. "Seeing is not enough. I should have something to hold onto, some solid evidence. I learned that from you."

Scully smiled briefly, a sudden warmth dispelling much of the anger she had allowed to build up in the weeks since their separation and the closing of the X-files. At least in this, she realized, she had achieved some success. She had finally gotten it through Mulder's head that he needed to back his wild theories with the proof of evidence, something tangible he could use to back up his hypothesis. She hadn't meant to impart that to him at the expense of what made Mulder so very special as an investigator; his enduring faith and the strength of his beliefs. "Your sister's abduction. You've held onto that."

He looked away, dropping his gaze, but not before Scully could see the doubt and depression written there. "I'm beginning to wonder if... if that ever even happened."

It hurt her to hear him say that. And it angered her, more than she believed possible, not at him, but at those who dared to shut him down, to shut him up. The first moment Fox Mulder had ever opened up to her was in the cold, dark hotel room in Bellefleur, Oregon, leaning against his bed as she curled up on it. He had poured his heart out to her, a relative stranger to him at the time, confessing the truth about his sister, about her disappearance, and the raw, open wound it had left in his soul. Despite all of the craziness of that case, all of the doubts she had, and everything she had seen that had smacked down her beloved science and reason, that one moment between them had cemented her desire to help Mulder in whatever way she could. She wanted to stand by his side because he believed that. The strength of Mulder's beliefs drove her to continue, to use her science and reason to assist him in finding whatever truths he needed to further his search. Even if that meant she would be forced to question some of the very beliefs that she clung to her entire life.

She reached a hand towards one of Mulder's, hanging loosely over one knee. She squeezed it briefly between her fingers, trying to reconnect to him, to remind him she was still there. "Mulder, even if George Hale only saw elves in his mind, the telescope still got built. Don't give up. And next time?" She let go of his hand and rose, smiling down at him, a rare occurrence for her given their height difference. "We meet out in the open."

He said nothing as she turned and walked away from him, crossing to her car not far away. As she unlocked the door and stepped inside, she glanced back at him, still sitting on the floor, staring at the wall gloomily. How had he lost his faith in his own quest so quickly? And worse, what could she possibly do to help him find that faith again?


	5. Feeding the Fishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully feeds Mulder's fish and attempts to discover his whereabouts.

Scully could tell by the look on Skinner's face as she entered that whatever reason he had called her to Washington from Quantico, it wasn't good. She politely took the chair he offered her in front of his desk, a chair she was starting to become rather familiar with. She hadn't expected she would be called up to sit in it again.

"Agent Scully, I'm sorry to call you up from Virginia on such short notice." He smoothed his tie against his broad chest as he sat down, pulling his chair up formally. There was a certain stiffness to his manner, a way his brows furrowed over his wire-rimmed glasses that made her stomach flip nervously. She could only think of one reason she would be called in for such an emergency. Either Mulder had done something incredibly stupid or he had managed to get himself killed. Nothing in Skinner's manner bespoke sympathy or loss, so Scully had to vote for the former. What could Mulder possibly have gotten himself into that involved staking out white-collar crime and twiddling his thumbs? Violently stabbing his relief with a pencil? Perhaps trying to choke someone with a sunflower seed?

Skinner was never one to dance around an issue and he cut right to the chase. "When did you last see Agent Mulder?"

"Yesterday," she replied promptly.

"Where," Skinner's dark eyes pinned her down against her seat, as if attempting he hoped to use them to dig out the truth.

Scully met his gaze evenly, meeting his question with half a correct answer. "In the bullpen hallway." No reason to lie about that, surveillance tape would at least show her saying hello to him.

"Did you speak with him?"

There was something about the Assistant Director's line of questioning that left her nervous, unsettled. Almost involuntarily she glanced behind him for the strange smoker who liked to lurk about when she was in Skinner office, but they were alone and no one appeared to pull Skinner's strings. "No," she replied. At least she hadn't spoken to him in the hallway. Skinner didn't need to know about the meeting at the Watergate. At least she was right on one count, they hadn't been watching she and Mulder like hawks, else they would have known that already. "Is he in some kind of trouble?" 

Skinner looked consternated, his jaw working quietly as he regarded Scully with a look that wavered between suspicion and puzzlement. "Agent Mulder failed to appear at his assignment this morning. His whereabouts are unknown."

Breathless, Scully's eyes flew wide, as Mulder's words from yesterday came back to her, haunting. "It's dangerous for us just to have a little chat, Scully." She had chalked it up to Mulder's natural paranoia. Perhaps, she realized as her stomach lurched sickeningly, Mulder understood their situation so much better than she did herself.

"Sir, I'll volunteer my time to assist in any search," she blurted, as panic set in, her mind racing to any and all possibilities regarding Mulder's whereabouts. Perhaps he had gone to his mother's in Connecticut? Perhaps he simply had fallen asleep and couldn't be reached? It could be anything. The dark thought that he had finally been shut down for his thoughts and ideas flittered into her mind. After all, they killed Deep Throat, why not Mulder?

"No, Agent Scully, the Bureau can handle any investigation." His tone was brusque and business like, as if Mulder was simply a child who had played hooky at school and could be easily traced at his best friend's house. "I simply was curious if you knew anything about his whereabouts?"

"No, sir," Scully replied, her thoughts already spinning into possibilities. He had said nothing the day before about going anywhere, and hadn't indicated that he had received any information or had planned any trips. He wouldn't go anywhere without telling her. She had extracted that promise out of him when they had separated, had forced him to agree to always tell her if he planned on going anywhere, in exchange for her compliance on not communicating with him. Her conscious reminded her, she had broken the rule yesterday, had convinced Mulder to meet her at the Watergate. Knowing Mulder it was quite possible he simply decided to bend the rules himself. Perhaps, she wondered, he had just assumed that when she heard about it, she would immediately go to his apartment to check things out, ffeed his fish. And maybe he had left his whereabouts behind.

"Do you have any idea where Agent Mulder might be, Agent Scully?" Skinner didn't look particularly hopeful that she would.

"No, sir. Perhaps his mother's?"

"We've already called there looking for him. Standard procedure when an agent doesn't check in. I had hoped that should he have decided to do something foolish, he would have perhaps reached out to someone he trusted first."

Scully shook her head, at least having complete honesty with her superior in this. "I have no idea where he might be, sir. And I sincerely hope that he's all right."

For a moment, Skinner looked as if he hoped for the same.

"Thank you for coming in, Agent Scully. I hope we didn't interrupt your schedule at Quantico to badly." He rose behind his desk, and she realized she was being dismissed.

"No sir, it was a light day." She stood to take his hand.

"Then I will let you get back to it." He shook her hand firmly, and watched as she moved towards his office door.

"Agent Scully," he called, just as her fingers closed around the doorknob. She turned to glance back at her former boss, inquiringly.

"If you should run across Agent Mulder before he checks in, I would ask that you advise him on the gravity of this situation. There are those who are concerned about his well-being and just what he might be up to. And they might not be so understanding and forgiving as I might be."

Skinner's expression never moved, but he might as well have had a neon sign over his head. Scully felt her mouth go dry as she nodded, slowly, opening the door. "I'll tell him that, sir, if I happen to find him."

Heart pounding, Scully stepped out of Skinner's office, smiling towards the ever-professional Kim and moved as quickly as would be seemly. Not bothering to even smile or meet the eyes of the other agents she passed, she rushed towards the elevators, stepping in as quickly as the door opened, and slapping the button to the parking levels so hard she could have broken the plastic. The other occupants didn't seem to notice her agitation as she twiddled her fingers nervously, twisting them together as she willed the elevator to move faster. Every floor it stopped on, allowing passengers on and off, she cursed silently under her breath, till she was alone in the elevator and it passed uninterrupted to the level her car was at. She barely breathed as she rushed to her car; unlocking the door and throwing it open as she quickly got behind the wheel. She was already backing out as she slipped her seat belt on and just barely avoided hitting an innocent bystander, heading towards their vehicle for lunch. Grimacing apologies, Scully banked her car hard towards the exit and prayed that lunch-hour DC traffic was light for a change, as she made a mad dash across the river towards Virginia.

In half an hour she was pulling up to Mulder's brick apartment building, glancing up at the blinds in his windows, not seeing even the breath of air stirring them. She ran down he walkway of the building, and towards the door, punching the button for Mulder's apartment in the vague up he was upstairs, and was simply pouting, refusing to listen to yet another tape of a private conversation regarding shake downs and strip teases. But after several seconds with her leaning on the buzzer, and no reply, she realized it was futile. There was no Deep Throat around now to tell her where her erstwhile partner had gotten loose. She swore loudly, as she buzzed for the building manager and waited as an unctuous man answered her call with a frazzled "hello" on the other end of the speaker.

"This is Special Agent Dana Scully with the FBI," she replied, willing to use her position to gain access to the building if she had to. "I'm here to check on my partner. Can you let me in?"

"Errr?" The man on the other end sounded surprised. "Yes, one moment." The speaker clicked off with a snap and Scully peered inside of the glass, waiting for the supervisor to make his way down the hallway towards her. He was a thin, wiry man with suspicious eyes. He waited till she had produced her badge before opening the front door for her.

"You here checking in on Mr. Mulder then?" The man immediately asked, glancing up through the ceiling towards the floors above.

"Yes. He's my partner," she replied, moving automatically towards the elevator. It wasn't completely true, Mulder hadn't been her partner in weeks. But she wasn't about to explain that to this man.

"Popular guy," he murmured under his breath, as Scully stopped, glancing at him in confusion as her finger sat on the button to call the elevator.

"What do you mean," she asked, perplexed.

"Just you aren't the only one looking for him. Couple of other FBI types came by earlier, wanting to look around. I told them no warrant, no deal and they've been sitting across the street ever since." He jerked his head out towards a blue sedan that was sitting, not quite nonchalantly under an oak tree across the way. "I sure hope he's all right." 

Scully pressed the call button for the elevator, glancing at the display anxiously. She didn't say it out loud, but she hoped that Mulder was as well.

The fourth floor was quiet during the mid-day, most everyone was at work somewhere and Scully could hear her own breath, harsh and loud in the silence. She pulled out her keys and unlocked the dark, wooden door, blinking into the darkness that seemed to perpetually enshroud Mulder's home. She stepped in, nearly tripping over the running shoes he had carelessly left at the door at some point. The entire space felt empty, as if Mulder hadn't been home for hours, perhaps since yesterday morning. A half-empty carton of some sort of Chinese food sat forgotten amongst papers and articles strewn across his coffee table and a pile of unopened mail was gathered at the corner of his desk. His answering machine blinked red into the dim light, the number one repeating angrily over and over. Scully pressed the button to play it as she continued to scan Mulder's desk for some sign of where he went and what he was up to.

"Mulder!" An angry female voice blasted from the speaker of his answering machine, "You hounded me to have lunch with you today and then you don't show. You're a pig." The speaker clicked off as the machine beeped and Scully stared at the machine, startled. The message itself wasn't particularly surprising, she had fielded such angry phone calls from other women during their brief partnership and had teased him as the months wore on and those phone calls became fewer and fewer. Mulder hadn't ever seemed particularly serious about any of them and as he became further entrenched in his work and the X-files, the less effort he gave to keep up with what had been a long string of females he would meet for lunches, drinks, and dinners on weekends. This angry message was the first she had heard about in a while. And of course, the first chance Mulder got, he blew it. Mulder seemed to be batting a thousand with women today, she mused, and he was managing to break all sorts of promises to all of them. Now, she wondered, as she sat at his desk and began pawing through papers, she just had to figure out what it was that interested him enough to not only break off lunch with Miss Congeniality on the answering machine, but his promise to her that he wouldn't run off unannounced like this. For what it was worth, she mused, it better involve a beautiful, tall blonde on a desert island or his sister's mysterious reappearance. Something that would justify Scully not murdering him on sight once she got her hands on him.

Finding nothing in his paperwork, she flipped on his computer, waiting at the dark screen booted to the computer's DOS prompt. Reaching in her pocket for her reading glasses, she began scanning the various directories and files, finally stumbling on one that read "Volume Protected; Enter Password". While any other red blooded, American male might hide his porn under such great lengths, Scully knew for a fact Mulder cared little for who found his adult entertainment and cared passionately about hiding his work. She thought briefly, what sort of password would Mulder use? Nothing obvious, certainly, but something that he would easily remember.

She snorted softly. The man had an eidetic memory, what couldn't he remember? Still, on a hunch she tried 'spooky' first, typing in Mulder's hated nickname in the Bureau. Unsurprisingly it failed and the screen blinked "Access Denied." What else would Mulder possibly use as a password? She thought about his birthday, October 13th, but decided that even Mulder wouldn't be that prosaic. She glanced at the fish. She didn't know if any of the floating, golden creatures had names, so she ruled out his pets. Her gaze landed on a framed photograph on his desk of a very young Mulder and his sister. She studied it for the briefest of moments. Mulder looked to be no older than eleven or twelve in the photograph, tall and husky for a boy his age, but still lacking the height that would stretch his heavier frame into the lanky thinness he possessed today. The grin was full and carefree, something she had never seen on her partners face and his arm was wrapped comfortably and possessively around his younger sister's thin shoulders. A big brother looking out for his younger sibling. Scully smiled. If Mulder wasn't so into aliens and bucking the system it might have been something he and her older brother, Bill, might have shared and understood.

Quickly, her fingers typed "Samantha" into the computer, thinking for sure that it would be the password she was looking for. Instead, the computer blinked angrily at her again, as once again her access was denied. Out of options, she tried to probe Mulder's demented mind for anything that he might use, catch phrases, the name of his favorite sports teams, his first car. Anything that Mulder would use to hide the sensitive information he received from his sources, such as Deep Throat, something that no one would think he would ever use.

It was the memory of Deep Throat that triggered it. His last, dying words to her as she felt his blood seep thickly through her fingers. Trust no one. Instinct wasn't something that Dana Scully relied on frequently, but she typed the phrase in anyway, 'trustno1', wondering how many permutations she would have to go through to see if the sentence even worked. One was all she needed. The "ok" dialogue box popped up as a series of files popped up on the screen files regarding a high resolution microwave survey, the sort that scanned skies of earth for any sign of radio signal from the depths of space. Nothing that looked particularly scandalous, she thought if you were a NASA scientist working at JPL in Pasadena. Why would Mulder have these files? And who sent them?

"Galactic altitude," she frowned at the screen. What the hell did that mean?

In the hallway, Scully could hear steps sounding from the elevator. Odd, she realized, especially considering that when she had entered just moments before the hallway had been stark and silent, the occupants of the other apartments off to the various jobs. Remembering the dark blue car parked in front of the building, Scully clicked "print", and waited anxiously as Mulder's printer kicked in beside his monitor. Not fast enough though, as the footsteps stopped at Mulder's door just as she shut off his monitor and stood, turning to see two strange men barge into Mulder's room. They glared suspiciously at her, their eyes roving the premises as if she was hiding Mulder under the couch or perhaps in the strange door just off of his living room, the door she had never dared to open.

"May I ask what you are doing here, Agent Scully?" One of the agents demanded peremptorily, glaring at her as if she had actually done something wrong.

"Are you following me," she challenged. She wouldn't have been surprised if they had said yes. What was Mulder getting into?

"Agent Mulder's residence is under surveillance. Please explain why you're here."

Was it standard operating procedure for the Bureau to stake out the apartments of those who hadn't called in? Scully shrugged casually, though her mind spun madly trying to find some way she could casually grab the print out that had fallen to the floor, without drawing the suspicion of the two already dubious agents.

"I was told by the Assistant Director that Mulder was gone." She blinked innocently at the two agents.

"So," the belligerent, talkative one of the pair still looked unconvinced, as Scully glanced over her shoulder, to where Mulder's fish swam lazily.

"So, whenever he's away, I feed his fish."

Apparently the FBI's finest had just now noticed the glowing, giant fish tank in the corner, bubbling softly in the silence of the apartment. Lord, Scully silently breathed, what sort of people did the Bureau hire now at days? She smiled brightly as she moved towards the tank and grabbed the tube of fish food.

"What the hell is this?" The other member of the pair, silent up to this point, leaned under Mulder's desk and pulled out the paper she had just printed. Scully swore silently as she busied herself with the fish. How to get that paper from Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?

"Looks like the self test the computer does." The belligerent agent snorted, obviously it's contents meant nothing to him. Scully could hear one of them crumpling the paper behind her and tossing it into Mulder's waste paper basket. She thanked her lucky stars these two were about as perceptive as a drunk and blind llama. She uncapped the fish food container, purposefully jerking hard on the lid, and spilling its contents onto the shelf where Mulder neatly kept the fish supplies.

"Damn!" She swore out loud, perhaps a bit louder than was necessary, but enough to catch Frick and Frack's attention. The belligerent one scowled at her as he eyed the large pile of flakes as Scully tried to scoop the worst of it up into the tube.

"Just dump it in the tank," he snorted, a typical male answer when they didn't want to deal with a problem. Sweep it under and ignore it. Scully turned and frowned at him coldly, arching one eyebrow at him as if he had asked her to flush Mulder's pets down the toilet.

"That would be bad for the fish," she replied icily and reached for the wastebasket, to the crumpled paper lying on top. She pulled it out and brushed some of the nutrient flakes inside, sprinkling just enough to feed Mulder's starving goldfish, before placing the top back on the tank and turning to deposit the paper back in the trash. At least that's how she made it look. The two other agents were too busy looking bored and irritated to notice her slip the paper neatly up the sleeve of her tan trench coat. Not even the sound of it scrapping lightly on the fabric caught their ears. And these were the ones they sent out on surveillance, she wondered in astonishment as she brushed past them both and towards Mulder's door.

"Make sure to lock up when you leave, boys," she called lightly as she stepped into the hallway. "And Mulder knows where all of his magazines are kept, so I wouldn't bother filching any of them either."

The pair blinked at her so startled she couldn't help but grin wickedly as she closed the door behind her.

She rushed out of the building, not caring that the two idiots were upstairs watching her from Mulder's window. She waited at least till she reached the safe haven of her car before pulling the paper out, and studying it. They were right. It looked like little more than the sort of printer test that the machines ran when you changed the ink. But she had seen the file before they had come up, something about scanning the skies and galactic latitudes. Reaching for her cell phone, she punched the first number she had on her speed dial.

"Hello," Maggie Scully warm voice picked up after the second ring.

"Hi Mom, it's Dana. Listen, you remember that guy Dad used to know, he worked at the Naval Observatory. He was an astronomer there."

"Astronomer…I think so," Maggie wondered vaguely. "Why?"

Scully paused, half tempted to tell her the truth, that Mulder had done something else stupid and she was off to find him. As much as her mother could probably sympathize, somehow Scully wondered if her telling her mother she planned on finding him wouldn't worry her far more than was necessary. "It's a case I'm working on, something came up involving radio waves. I'm looking for someone who might be able to help me out."

"Just a moment." Scully could hear her mother rifle through papers, pulling out her thick, voluminous address book, the one that she used for Christmas cards and birthday invitations. The entire thing was the size of a doorstop, and just as heavy. "Um, there was this guy there your Dad liked to chat with, Steve Troisky? That ring any bells?"

"Troisky? I think so." Her father, much like his youngest daughter, had a love of all things scientific and had made friends with many such researchers and observers employed by the Navy for various projects. "I'll see if I can look him up at the Observatory."

"I hope it pans out for you," her mother offered helpfully.

Scully studied the wrinkled paper she held flat against her steering wheel as she drove. "Yeah, I hope it pans out for me too," she replied. If not, Mulder's life, or at the very least his career, could be over.


	6. Inútil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully makes a side trip to Puerto Rico.

The sun was barely up over the rolling fields and swaying palms of the Puerto Rican countryside, silent safe for the chorus of coquí chirping in the forest beyond the one lane road. Despite it being early morning still, the heat was a thick, wet blanket, clinging to Scully's skin, causing her to regret the olive-green khakis she had chosen for this insane, rescue mission. She had picked them because she had no idea where this Arecibo astronomy station was, let alone where in the thick of the Puerto Rico mountains it would be. The jeep she had hired in the closest town bumped and banged along up the side of steep cliffs, along a back entry that one of the locals said led to the isolated observatory and weather center. Arecibo was run out of Cornell University, she knew that much about it, but it had been closed over the summer months for renovation, or so the official word had it. All personnel and students had removed themselves for the four weeks it was scheduled to be worked on, leaving the facility with only a light guard. She wondered what the hell had drawn Mulder here in the first place. 

She'd been lucky in her search for her erstwhile former partner so far. The two agents assigned to stake out Mulder's apartment had been little better than school boys on watch and the pair that had followed her to the airport had been far to easily to dupe. She had left a phone call she knew that the idiots at Mulder's apartment could hear and they would feed it back to the pair following her at the airport. Frankly, if this was the best Skinner could manage, she seriously wondered about the caliber of agents that worked under him. Unless he didn't want Mulder to be found by the Bureau, she pondered as the jeep engine strained up the incline. His parting shot as she left his office the day before still lingered in her mind. Skinner had been sans the presence of the mysterious smoking man, the one who seemed to openly pull his strings for reasons that Scully still couldn't fathom. Perhaps without that man's presence Skinner for once was showing a different side of himself, a side that was much more sympathetic to Mulder and his work than Skinner could, in all good politics, properly let on. She hoped that was the case. As it was, she thought grimly, she would be pushing her luck. She had been fortunate enough in that Mulder had decided to pull this little stunt on a Friday. No one would question her being away from home at least till Monday. If she were lucky, she would find evidence of Mulder and track him down right away. If not, she would have to have a creative reason as to why it was she wasn't coming in on Monday. If they figured that out, why it was she was in Puerto Rico instead of back home in Washington.

The observatory sat at the crest of a hill, and Scully pulled up to what looked like a debris field around it. A storm had blown in the night before, shortly after her plane had landed in San Juan, and it looked as if it had torn the surrounding jungle into confetti, shreds of green littering the area. The building itself looked fine, but the large satellite dishes in the distance covered with dirt, branches, and detritus. It looked just as empty as she had been told it was, save for one person obviously. One of the gunmetal gray steel doors stood open, a foot wide gap dark in the morning sunlight. Just inside the door she could see a flurry of paper scattered there, as if the wind had swept in and turn the room upside down. Perhaps the door had managed to open itself in the gale, but she doubted it. It was thick and heavy, the sort that was built to withstand the sometimes dangerous, hurricane strength winds that often tore through Puerto Rico in the summer and fall. She doubted anything in nature had opened that door. She prayed it was Mulder instead.

She parked the jeep, crawling out and grabbing the backpack she had brought with her, filled with water, a flashlight, and her small kit of medical supplies. Scully could never tell with Mulder and injuries, more often than not he had suffered some sort of abuse and usually at the hands of the military. She shouldered the pack and stepped through the scatter of leaves and branches carefully, her sensible shoes crunching over the remains as she scanned the area for any sign of humans anywhere. The door to the observatory was partially blocked by something that had fallen in its way, something heavy enough that Scully couldn't budge it alone. However, the opening was just enough that her slight frame could easily squeeze through the space if she took her backpack off and carried it behind her. Breathlessly she pushed forward, stumbling over scattered paperwork and fallen files, as she blinked in the semi-darkness for any sign of human life. She paused, long enough to reach into her backpack for the flashlight she had stored there, pulling it out and flicking it on into the darkness of the room. Around her fallen equipment and crumpled paper lay in heaps, turned upside down and scattered as if by an angry child. Signs of some sort of human activity recently were evident, scattered food wrappers, water bottles, the reams of dot-matrix printed paper lumped in the corner and beside it…

"Mulder!" Her flashlight fell on a lump of gray fabric and blue denim curled on itself on the floor. Dropping her pack, she rushed to him, reaching for his dark hair, turning his head up so she could properly see his face. In the harsh light of the flashlight he looked worse for wear, unshaven, face ashen and worn, his breathing shallow as she reached towards his throat to feel his pulse. It was slow, but steady, and Scully found herself breathing a sigh of relief.

"Please God, be all right," she murmured. As if in response to her prayers Mulder's eyelids cracked open just a fraction, blinking open with painful slowness as he squinted against the white blaze shining in his face. For a moment terror shot across his angular face, causing Scully wondered if he even knew where he was or who she was for that matter.

"I was sure you were dead," she murmured, turning away the light, allowing him to see her clearly. She tried to smile reassuringly as moved away from her touch with a nervous jerk. "It's Scully. Dana Scully. Do you know where you are?" Mulder shook his head groggily and tried to sit up, long legs trying to find traction on the cluttered ground. She offered her arm to him to add leverage to his efforts as he pulled himself up, heavy and clumsy, dazed by whatever happened to him the night before. He glanced about the tumbled and torn room, rubbing his head as if in a stupor.

"They came, Scully." He looked towards her with fever bright eyes. "The ones that took her. They were here." He turned to her, his large hands grabbing her shoulders, pinning her down, blazing belief beginning to burn around him, like a corona.

"Here?" She turned her head to look at the fallen computer equipment. Mulder only responded with the slightest flicker of his eyes as she reached a hand up to his feverish forehead, the skin hot to her touch."Or here?"

Despite the humid stickiness, she felt no sweat under her fingertips and she worried about dehydration as Mulder's bleary eyes turned from her angrily. He spun towards a giant, old fashioned metallic tape recorder behind him, grabbing the large real of tape and waving it in the air. "On the tapes, the tape…evidence! Proof!"

He turned wildly away from the machine and towards the giant sheaf of papers that had found him beside. "And the transmissions, it's all here." He turned to her, giddy as a child at Christmas, waving his hands as if willing her to see.

"Proof of what?" She asked blankly, staring at the print outs in confusion.

"Contact," he supplied simply, holding up one of the pages for her to see. "And these print outs, it's here. And the man!" He spun again, this time to an overturned table. He grabbed it with two hands, using his arm strength to tip it over and reveal the prostrate form of a man underneath. Scully stared at fallen body in shock, wondering for half a mad moment if this was something Mulder had done. He was dead and had been for several hours at the least. There wasn't a mark on him, but his face was twisted in a horrific grimace as he stared up at them, eyes cloudy. What had been lightly browned skin in life was now ashy gray and his body had left the rigor mortis stage some time before. She could already smell the scent of death.

"We'll have to examine the body," Mulder continued in his heady, heated frenzy. "There will be more proof." He stopped for the first time, staring at her as if she should automatically produce her autopsy tools, her equipment, a table, and begin work on the poor fellow right there, in the middle of a dimly lit, overturned computer room, in what promised to be a well over 100 degree day in Puerto Rico. His bright eyes flickered to her pack on the floor, as if wondering why she wasn't hopping to it. Was this what her incessant arguing with him about proof and evidence had led to, she thought with horrified dismay. Mulder trying to eek out hard facts from scattered print outs and a dead body he had no proper way of explaining. What sort of evidence would any of this provide for Skinner, let alone OPR once they got their hands on him? What bothered Scully more than Mulder's clearly hysterical state was who it was that had created the print out jumbled on the floor near where she had found Mulder. And what was responsible for the mysterious man's death? Outside, over the sounds of the breeze and forest beyond them, Scully could hear the grinding sound of engines, a low rumble as they toiled up the side of the hill. 

"Is that them," she asked Mulder, wondering if this was the "they" that Mulder had been referring to.

Without a word of confirmation one way or the other, Mulder ran for the door, grabbing binoculars from off the floor as he went. She followed after him, his long legs hopping over debris as he stopped to scan the hillside below, up the road Scully had just so assiduously climbed in the jeep. The noises of other vehicles, many of them, rang through the stillness.

"It's the Blue Berets Crash Retrieval Team." He scowled darkly. Apparently the men in military camouflage with bright, blue berets were meaningful to him. Scully tried to dig through her own military knowledge. She didn't remember who the hell that group was and had never heard of them. Mulder turned indecisively between the jeep and the building. "They'll kill us." 

He mentioned this fact almost as an afterthought. Scully stared at Mulder as if he had lost his mind, before she stared wildly down the hill. A government crash retrieval team that would kill them on sight. Just what had Mulder stepped into? What was so important about this site that military hit squads would kill two civilians on sight?

"Help me with the body!" Mulder began running back into the building, back for the body.

"We don't have time," Scully yelled after him, running inside to grab her pack, as Mulder frantically tried to lift the dead man by his shoulders.

"Help me," he insisted, dragging the man across the littered floor.

Dead God, she though wildly, with death closing in on him, why did all good sense flee him? "Mulder, we're never going to be able to get the body out of the country!" Despite Puerto Rico's status as a US protectorate and their role as FBI agents, she couldn't even guarantee that they would be able to explain it to Skinner without implicating herself and Mulder in ways that would be difficult and uncomfortable to explain.

Mulder resignedly dropped the dead man, and instead turned towards the print outs, ripping them off of the printer and rifling through them. Down below, Scully could hear the engines of the vehicles creeping closer and closer. She reached for Mulder's elbow and tried to drag him behind her out of the door. "Mulder, we have to go. Evidence is worthless if you're dead!"

He glared at her, but did as she asked, dropping the papers, and instead grabbing the tape reel. As Scully ran out of the door, he followed close behind, jumping into the jeep just as one van filled to the brim with soldiers pulled up to the other side of the building.

"I'll drive," Mulder pushed Scully over on the long, bench seat as he started the loud, rumbling engine and glanced towards where the military men had already begun to file out and around the building. His right leg jammed on the accelerator as he threw the engine into gear, just as rifles started to appear and fire at them from behind.

"Scully, get down," he shouted, as she scooted off of the seat and crawled under the passenger side dash board, covering her head with her hands as bullets whizzed past where she would have been sitting. Mulder only ducked slightly, as he focused his eyes on the jungle ahead, the lack of a path for them to follow seemingly inconsequential in their mad dash away from the assault rifles behind them.

"Stay down," he ordered as the jeep crashed through branches and foliage. Mulder occasionally bent down to avoid being swatted in the face by recoiling trees. Scully held her breath as the jeep went briefly airborne a small rise, landing hard back on the ground, as in the distance she could hear the military vehicles once again, this time in high speed pursuit after them. She glanced up at Mulder as she tried to shimmy back up into the seat. His eyes met hers for the briefest of seconds, before he swerved their vehicle sharply away down a brief slope and onto the dirt road that she had used to get up to him.

The log in the road ahead had been only a brief obstacle on the way up, but as Mulder tore at top speeds down the side of the hill it sent the jeep flying again, as Scully looked behind them to see how closely the military followed behind. All too closely it seemed, as one white van was practically on top of them, close enough that Scully could see their blue berets through the window.

"Mulder," she yelled, alarmed. Without even looking behind him to see the source of her concern, Mulder turned sharply down another hill, and onto a different gravel path, slamming the accelerator hard as the jeep picked up and raced across the hard packed earth and granite. In the distance, Scully could see that the top-heavy, fully loaded van couldn't keep up. It slowed behind them, finally stopping as they raced their way through the rolling farmlands towards the village below, the one where Scully had picked up the jeep in the first place.

Scully waited until the van was well out of site before she turned to stare at the side of Mulder's head, his eyes fixed on the gravel road in front of them. "Don't tell me you're a race care driver in another life," she gasped, realizing now that as the danger was past her heart was lodged somewhere just below her throat and her hands and legs trembled as if she had just run a marathon. She could taste the sourness of adrenaline on her tongue. Mulder didn't respond, except to smile all to briefly as he glanced in the rear view mirror, his speed not slacking until they caught sight of the small village in the distance.

The man from whom she hired the jeep, named Jorge, was affable enough and glad to see his property so quickly returned. Scully had led the man to believe she was a scientist, there to take a daytime research jaunt up into the mountains, and Jorge was surprised to see the exhausted, worn out Mulder by her side. Rather than try and explain the circumstances to him, she merely paid the man what she had promised, and retrieved the rental car she had used from San Juan to the village and quickly packed Mulder and her gear inside. She kept an eye on the main road that led from the mountain to the village, hoping against hope the military had given up on chasing them further in favor of whatever it was that had drawn them to the observatory in the first place. As Jorge smiled and waved cheerfully in her rear view mirror, Scully kept close watch for the mile or so it took to move out of the village, and around the bend on the paved, two lane road that lead back towards the main highway and San Juan.

"I think we are safe for now, Mulder," she sighed with some relief as she glanced towards him. He had been silent since their flight down from the observatory and still sat there, as if stunned, staring mutely out of the window, his face as closed off as the rest of him. He didn't even acknowledge that she had said anything to him.

Puerto Rico as an island wasn't large, only a bit more than 100 miles across and the drive through the rolling, mountainous countryside from the Arecibo to the sprawling city of San Juan took no more than a few hours. It was afternoon as Scully pulled her car under the recognizable awning of the Hilton, a valet graciously came around and opened the door for her.

"Thank you," she murmured to the smiling young man, grabbing her backpack from the back of the car as he took her keys. On the other side, Mulder poured himself out of the passenger's side, his lank frame nearly rubbery from exhaustion as he clutched the reel of tape close to his chest.

"Will you be staying tonight, ma'am?" The doorman spoke in barely accented English as she nodded, grabbing Mulder's unresistant arm and dragged him behind her into the cool, palm lined, marble lobby beyond.

"Scully, you can't afford this," Mulder somehow managed to croak, the first words she had heard from him in hours.

"Let's just say I plan on you reimbursing me for my trouble," she replied tersely. "We can't go to a cheap motel by the beach, Mulder. If those people up on that mountain are the same ones who've been tailing me and watching for you for the last three days, the first place they will look is the sort of dive place where any good FBI agent would assume they could keep a low profile." Hide in a more obvious setting, she thought, something that would break their pattern, something unexpected.

"Besides," she murmured as she raised a pointed eyebrow to Mulder's sweat stained shirt and dirt begrimed face. "You could use a bath. And so could I."

Mulder raised no further protests as she went to the front desk, suddenly very conscious of her now sticky clothes and flyaway hair. The concierge, a pretty woman in her twenties, politely seemed not to notice, especially when Scully pulled out her FBI badge and personal credit card.

"I'd like a room for tonight." She tried not to choke on the words "a room." Between the plane ticket from Dulles, this room and the return tickets she knew she would have to purchase for her self and Mulder, she couldn't afford to keep up with pretenses and niceties and purchase a separate room at a five star hotel for both of them. Mulder would just have to make due with being a gentleman tonight. As dead on his feet as he was, she doubted he would have much of a problem.

"Sign here," the woman passed the room registry over, glancing towards Mulder who stood nearby, looking dazed and exhausted. "May I see his ID as well?"

"Sure." Scully tried to smile politely as she turned towards Mulder, waving her own ID at him in hopes of getting the idea across. He nodded vaguely, pulling out his wallet, and tossing a picture ID from the Commonwealth of Virginia across the marble counter at the girl.

"Thank you Ms. Scully, Mr. Hale." The woman nodded, passing the registry over to Mulder as well to sign. Scully's eyebrows rose sharply at Mulder's assumed name, but she said nothing as Mulder scribbled something that might have passed for the name "George Hale" if one had been squinting hard and near sighted. She accepted the room keys from the concierge and declined the offer of a bellhop up to the room, instead grabbing Mulder's quickly melting form and dragging him towards the elevators and hopefully soon a bed.

"George Hale," she murmured as she pulled him onto the elevator.

"Yeah," he nodded, slipping the piece of plastic back into his wallet. "Fake ID. I had the Gunmen whip it up for me before I left for here. Helps that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth to the US, no need for a passport."

"You're just damn lucky I found that name on the passenger list," she breathed, as the elevator let them out on their floor. "Else I never would have found you."

"I'm half shocked you did myself," Mulder admitted in a tired mumble, as she finally located their room, slipping the key card into the electronic lock and opening the door for him to stumble inside. He paused as he saw the one, large bed in the middle. Apparently he was just coherent enough to make out what this implied and he turned to stare at her in exhausted confusion.

"Mulder, you need rest." She dumped her backpack on the nearest flat surface, a table, as she moved towards him, reaching up to place the palm of her hand flat against his forehead. His skin still burned and she scowled at him with professional, medical worry. "You have a fever and are probably dehydrated. Get some water into you." She moved towards the mini-bar and fished out a bottle of water for him to drink.

"You'll have to pay for that," he protested feebly as she glared at him, hands on her hips, waiting for him to crack the top and drink slowly.

"I'll add it to your growing tab," she replied dryly, as she moved towards the bathroom, looking for towels and one of the soft-fluffy robes that such establishments offered as conveniences in their hotels. "I want you to finish that bottle, then I want you to take a bath." She wrinkled her nose at him as he obediently drank his water. "You smell like you've been lost in the jungle for three days.

Mulder glanced down at his sweat-stained shirt sorrowfully and then back up at her.

"Then it's off to bed for you and no arguments." She tossed the towels and robe on the bed as she moved back to her pack and pulled out her medical kit. "I have a sedative here to help you sleep."

"I don't think I'll need help sleeping," he replied honestly, yawning widely as if to prove his point.

"Right," Scully wasn't so sure, but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "In the meantime, I'll call down for some food for the both of us and see if I can't get someone to launder…that." She waved a hand at his clothes, wrinkling her nose. "Because there is no way I will allow you to be on any airplane for four hours smelling like you do."

At this, Mulder actually did finally crack a smile. "I think I can take a hint, Scully." He down the rest of his water, gathered the robe and towels and shuffled into the bathroom without another word. She waited till he had tossed out his clothing, jeans, t-shirt, boxers, and socks and she heard the showering running. Scooping up the entire lot, she called downstairs to see if she could have them washed and dinner brought up for them for the night. By the time Mulder finally managed to crawl from the shower, looking and smelling considerably better, Scully had simple food of salads and grilled fish waiting. Mulder eyed the fair with a dubious gaze, picking at his plate with a fork as if probing a strange mutant life form.

"They don't have burgers around this joint," Mulder lamented as he finally settled on the bed, wrapped in one of the hotel robes, taking the plate Scully handed him with resignation.

"Fish is lighter on the stomach and it tastes better than what I wanted to feed you."

"Dry toast?" Mulder took a hesitant taste of his food and finding that it wasn't completely distasteful, took a much hardier bite the next pass.

"How long has it been since you last ate?" She turned to her own plate, picking at the leafy greens with a sudden lack of appetite. Her own exhaustion from the events of the last two days was starting to catch up with her.

"Dry toast is what you feed sick people," Mulder protested weakly. "I haven't been sick a day in my life."

Scully only silently stared at him.

"Well, I wasn't sick from anything that wasn't done to me. I broke bones, I've been shot, but I've never been sick with colds or stomach flu. Mom always said I was a miracle child."

"I think your mother only said that because she was shocked you hadn't been killed yet," Scully replied sleepily, munching half-heartedly on her salad.

"Maybe," Mulder yawned, finishing off what was surprisingly his last bite of food and setting the whole plate on the bedside table as he settled against the soft pillows. "I might have died out there today if you hadn't have found me." His green eyes locked on hers, contrite and thankful. "How did you find out, anyway?"

"Not from you," she retorted angrily, as all of the irritation she felt towards him for breaking the one promise she had extracted out of him weeks ago finally came to a head. "I asked you not to do this Mulder, for this very reason. Do you realize the shit storm that is waiting for you when you get home?"

Mulder blinked at her silently, his expression grim as he nodded. For the first time since she had met him looking truly sorry for the trouble he had caused.

"Skinner called me in from Quantico. He wanted to know if you had said anything, had told me where you were going." She speared a forkful of fish but didn't put it in her mouth. "He said you hadn't checked in that morning. You know the regulations, Mulder, especially on white-collar cases. You check in whenever you aren't there, so that the FBI is aware that you are safe and that nothing has happened to you."

"You really think Skinner called you in because he was worried about my safety?" Mulder snorted doubtfully.

"No," Scully replied honestly. "But it is one of those basic rules that is drilled into us from day one at the Academy and it's a great way for you to have your ass tossed out of the FBI."

"Why not? It's what they want," he shot back with childish impudence.

"And you would give them that satisfaction?" She tossed her fork down, food scattering. "You have so much work left, Mulder! All that you have seen, that I have seen!" She pressed her lips together briefly as the wellspring of the last few weeks of confusion, of guilt, of anger threatened to spill out. "Deep Throat died that night to save you because of what you have uncovered, of what you can uncover. He gave his life to save you because of what was in that flask, of what I saw, of that virus that an innocent woman and her entire family died over. And you would carelessly throw that away for…for…a dead body and some illegible print outs?"

"I was given a chance to have proof, Scully," Mulder shot back. "Real proof, the kind you are always telling me I need, proof of extra-terrestrial life on this planet. I saw it." He ran a hand restlessly through his still damp hair, nearly black with the moisture, causing it to stick out at odd angles. "I saw them. They came. They are the reason Concepcion died."

Concepcion must have been the dead body they had left behind, she realized.

"It was hard evidence, real evidence, to prove that everything I was saying was true. That's why they sent that squad in there, because they figured out that it was where I went, that I was going to bring back the truth."

"How could anyone have discovered that, Mulder?" Scully felt her head begin to ache with the sheer effort of understanding Mulder's paranoia. "I had a hard time finding where you were. And I shook off several agents trying to find you." She nearly laughed at she thought of the pair in Mulder's apartment. "You're just lucky I'm as good of an investigator as I am or you might have been dead back there. George Hale!" She snorted, crossing her arms and leaning back in the chair she sat in by the table. "Damn it, Mulder, this isn't a game. This isn't a chance for you to run off, playing cloak and dagger because it amuses you. Fox Mulder against the world. You could have died and I would not have even known where you were, what had happened to you. And everything, all of this work you were so desperate to get evidence for, would go down the tubes. What good is it to have your precious proof if you aren't even there to present it, to defend it, to bring it to the light of day?"

Mulder stared gloomily in front of himself, studying his bare feet on top of the bed cover, not denying her charges. She watched him, expecting something out of him, anger, defensiveness, anything. Instead he sat there, looking guilty.

"Jesus, Mulder, I promised I would help you with your work. But I can't help you if you refuse to even listen to any of my advice. Gut instinct and leaps of logic will only get you so far. Once in a while just think before you act. This isn't just about you anymore."

"Are you done, mother," he finally murmured sulkily, in what she suspected was an act of exhaustion more than it was an act of aggression.

"You need rest," she conceded, pushing aside her own, uneaten dinner and standing up to cross to her own bag. "I have stuff here to give you."

"No shooting me up with drugs, Doc," he replied sleepily, as he pulled back the covers of the bed and crawled underneath. "Where are you going to sleep tonight?"

She glanced to a small couch, just big enough for two people to sit on and perhaps for her small form to curl up on for an uncomfortable nights sleep. How ironic, she thought. She chipped in for an expensive hotel and she wasn't even going to have the chance to enjoy it. Well, except for the bath. She planned on taking a long one of those as soon as Mulder had drifted off and she had ordered their tickets to return home. "I'll manage, Mulder. Go to sleep." She gave him a tired, sad smile of her own as she trundled off into the bath, the sound of Mulder snores following her soon after.

Her soak in the hot water relieved the aching tension in her shoulder built up from hours of driving and their harrowing flight down the side of the mountain. Feeling human for the first time since she had left for San Juan the night before, she slipped gratefully into the hotel robe. Padding into the room, she checked on Mulder's soft snores, feeling his forehead quickly, before taking the phone with her into the bathroom and placing a quick call to the airline she had flow in to San Juan on. Two tickets and a considerable extra hit to her credit card later, and she wearily returned to the room, glancing at Mulder's slumbering form, out cold and motionless beneath the blankets, the cool breeze of the hotels air conditioners taking the heat of summer out of the room and leaving it comfortable for sleep. Careful not to disturb him, Scully grabbed an extra pillow from off the bed and searched the closet for an extra blanket, with which she curled up on the small couch, thinking she would try her best to make do with that for the night and catch a few hours sleep.

When her eyes closed they didn't open again until bright sunlight found its way under her eyelids, as Scully burrowed deeper into the softness of the pillows and the cushion beneath her. She was so comfortable, it she hardly wanted to move, her body still sore from the day before. It took her tired brain several long moments to realize that the couch by far shouldn't be this soft and that even her short stature shouldn't be able to fit on the entire length of it. She bolted up in the bed, blinking wildly as she glanced around her, finding herself alone in the bed she knew for certain had contained Mulder when she had gone to sleep and not herself. Staring about wildly, she began to scramble out, pulling the terry cloth robe further around her, as somewhere in the bathroom she heard a stirring. She rose, kicking back the blankets and peered inside, surprised to see Mulder standing at the bathroom sink, fully dressed in clothes freshly laundered and methodically shaving with cheap, plastic disposable razor and a small travel can of shaving cream, both looking as if they were purchased downstairs.

"You're up!" He looked surprised as he scraped the foam off of his face with practiced strokes. From what she could see he looked considerably better than he had when she had put him to bed the night before, his eyes were less feverish, his skin less gray.

"I am," she nodded blearily. "How did I end up in the bed?"

"I put you there." He shrugged; concentrating on the area of his chin just under his full, bottom lip. "You were pretty out of it. I didn't know if you even noticed."

"I didn't." She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake up further. "What time did you get up?"

"Early. I'm weird about sleeping anyway." Mulder shrugged, reaching for a towel and wiping the rest of the shaving cream off of his face. Now freshly free of facial hair he looked less like a desperate maniac raving about aliens and more like the Mulder who was only nominally crazy. "It's almost ten."

"Ten?" Scully blinked in surprise, turning to scramble back into the bedroom and to grab her own, un-laundered clothes, thinking that perhaps it would have been a good idea to send them through the wash as well. She could have changed into her suit, the one she flew in from San Juan in, but feared it looked even more bedraggled than her khaki's and black t-shirt. "We have flights out of here in a few hours."

"When?" Mulder leaned against the bathroom door and watched as she gathered her pile of clothing.

"One for you, two for me. You are flying back through Dulles as George Hale." She smirked at his assumed name. "And I'm flying through Baltimore as myself. Mom has already said she'll drive me back home." She held up a hand to Mulder's protesting look. "It was the only way, Mulder. They are watching for me and they are watching your apartment. I'd be prepared for when you get home. Chances are they will be sitting there waiting for you to arrive."

"Hope they didn't drink all of the beer," Mulder sighed reluctantly, moving from the bathroom door to allow Scully access and flopping on the bed.

"You keep beer there?" Scully teased as she moved into the bathroom and quickly put on her clothes from the day before. It felt grimy, but it was the best she could do given the circumstances. She ran a brush through her red hair and threw it into a ponytail, not caring if it looked professional or not.

"Anyway," she continued her conversation as soon as she stepped out of the door, "It will look less suspicious to Skinner if I come from Baltimore. I can simply say I spent my weekend with my mother, if he should bother to ask, which he won't. It would mean he'd have to admit to spying on me as well and watching me in my private life. Considering I have done nothing to earn such notice, he'd have some hard questions to answer before OPR."

"You think he's going to can my ass?" Mulder grabbed the television remote and flipped it on, scanning through channels till he settled on CNN with a bored sort of attention.

"I don't know, Mulder," she replied, beginning to pack her few belongings. "He might. But something tells me that he won't."

"Why?" Mulder cocked his head at her curiously. It was rare that Scully ever followed any feelings. Gut instinct was not Scully's standard operating procedure. To hear her say such was obviously intriguing to him.

She shrugged, trying to express in words what she had surmised about Skinner after he called her into his office. "I think that Skinner sits on a very fine line. He is called on by the powers that be, because of his position, because of his responsibilities, to be the one to always make sure that you are following procedure, protocol. And he's facing very heavy pressure from people we don't even understand to do it." She knew Mulder would immediately realize she was talking about the shady smoker who seemed to like to hang out in Skinner's office for no apparent reason. "But I think that Skinner knows that what you are doing is real work and he wants to support you, Mulder. You just make it damn difficult for him when you are continually ignoring every protocol set before you to do whatever you wish. And that makes it damn hard for those who want to help you to do so."

"You managed," Mulder pointed out, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, but at what cost?" She waggled her pocketbook at him as she tossed it in her backpack. "Skinner has more hefty people to answer to than myself. If you learn to play by the rules, Mulder, you get a lot more done."

"You of all people should know, Scully, that these people, these cases, they don't follow any rules. They are above such things." His eyes darkened as he scowled at her.

"Maybe they are. But you aren't. I told you once, Mulder, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you. Don't ask me to keep doing the impossible. I may not be able to do this again. Not because I won't try, but because it will really be a place I can't follow."

Mulder studied her with an inscrutable face for several long moments, before nodding solemnly. "I'll try, Dana. The last thing I want in this world is for you to be hurt by this."

"And I don't want you hurt either." She smiled softly. "So please, try to check some of your more self-destructive tendencies?"

"I can't promise anything." He held up his hands. "But I'll try."

"Good," she nodded. In the silence that followed between then beneath the chatter of the television, Scully heard her stomach growl angrily. She hadn't finished her meal the night before. She clutched at her middle, looking embarrassed, as Mulder frowned at her in concerned awe.

"Did that noise come from you?"

She blushed, nodding. "Perhaps breakfast would be in order before we leave."

"I like that sound of that," Mulder lept from the bed, clicking the television off as he grabbed for Scully's bag. "Let's find a place downstairs, appropriately expensive enough to assuage my guilt for having you pay for this delightful room we shared last night."

"Just so you know, Mulder, this won't be a habit between the two of us, sharing rooms."

"Did I suggest anything of the sort?" He looked as if she had just affronted his honor as a gentleman. "I wonder if they have pancakes around this place?" 

"I suppose convincing you of cereal, yogurt and fruit is out of the option?" She slung her pack over her shoulder as he held the door to the room open for her.

"Scully, I've just been through a grueling experience. I nearly died and you want to shove healthy crap down my throat?" He sounded as if she was trying to poison him.

"I don't know, Mulder, perhaps I'm just trying to keep you alive long enough to torture you with wheat grass and bran muffins."

"Keep that up, Scully, and I'll make sure to get good and lost next time. Perhaps somewhere where they feed men real food."

"When you find your mythical island of Amazons, Mulder, let me know. I'll need to feed your fish." She smiled sweetly at him as she stepped out into the hall.


	7. Still Have You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder realizes that despite it all, he still has Scully.

It really was a shit a hole. Scully eyed the shabby apartment building distastefully as she tried not to step in anything that looked vaguely like a damp spot in her brand new high heels. Stale smells and peeling paint certainly added to the atmosphere of dark, dank, and suspicious. Personally, if she were involved in organized crime, she would never chose a dump to run her operation out of. After all, it was the first sort of place the FBI would start looking. However, it never failed some two-bit operator for some organized crime family would think it best to go and hide in shambles, discussing family secrets as if it were an open invitation for them to be caught by the authorities. No wonder Mulder was bored to tears, Scully smirked; it was practically like shooting fish in a barrel. The FBI had staked out one small, cramped room on the far side of the apartments, well away from the prying eyes of the men they were listening to. Scully knocked on the thin, particle board door, waiting patiently as she heard the shuffling inside and the pause as Mulder inspected to see who it was on the other side of the door.

"You got the secret password?" His dry voice was serious on the other side of the door.

"Sunflower seeds?" She held up a bag of them for him, waving them enticingly through the peek hole in the door. She grinned as she heard the door open as Mulder leaned against the door frame, frowning at the plastic bag.

"You shouldn't be here, Scully. It's not your case."

"Weren't you the one who tried to convince me once the way to a man's heart was through his stomach?"

"Aren't you the one who tells me seeds have too much sodium?"

"I figured we'd call a truce." She shoved the plastic bag at him, forcing him to take it as he moved away enough to allow her in. "Nice place you got here, Mulder. A little paint, a couch, it might just be livable." Her eyes roamed the small space, with its lack of drywall, it's particleboard and the cans of paint sitting unused on a dusty drop cloth.

"Super cut a deal with the FBI to let us use the place. Seems he wasn't too keen on us poking too deeply into his business transactions," Mulder shrugged his shoulders in his tired looking suit coat, and moved back to the small table filled with recording equipment. Scully immediately saw the tape he had so carefully brought back with him from San Juan.

"You haven't listened to it yet?" Scully nodded her head towards it, surprised he hadn't tried to take it to the Lone Gunmen immediately.

"Skinner predictably had my ass the moment I got home. It didn't leave much time."

"How bad was it?"

"Bad." Mulder shrugged, so used to Skinner's rants at him about breeches of protocol by now it hardly seemed to faze him. "Our smoking friend was there again."

Scully didn't know why she should be surprised at all by that statement, but she was. "Did you find out why?"

"Nope." Mulder shook his dark head as he threaded the tape he brought back from Puerto Rico into the machine. "Whoever he is, he worked a bit too hard trying to get me out of this joint. Skinner actually put his foot down."

"His foot down?" Scully was mystified. "What do you mean?"

"I think the smoker wanted me out of the Bureau. This was his big chance. And Skinner told him to take a hike." Mulder didn't look pleased, but he sounded that way. "I don't know, perhaps what you said about Skinner, about him sitting on the fence, maybe there is something to it."

"Maybe." Scully still wasn't sure what to make of Skinner and just where his allegiances lay in terms of the X-files and Mulder's work. "But I'd like to know who that man is and why he's so keen on making your life miserable."

"Never have been able to figure anything out about him." Mulder began to spool the tape carefully. "He's a shadowy figure at best, no name, no identity, I once pocketed one of his cigarette butts in the hopes of getting a fingerprint or DNA match off of him. Nothing. It's as if he doesn't exist."

"Then why is here there? Who does he work for? And why is Skinner so afraid of him?"

"I think the bigger question, Scully, is not why Skinner is afraid of him. I think the bigger question is who is he protecting and why he's protecting it. Because he's going to awfully dangerous lengths, exposing himself for just one crazy guy locked in the basement of the FBI?" Mulder pressed play on the spool of tape and leaned into the machine intently, listening for…what? Scully wasn't sure, but she found herself taking a chair beside the small table, pulling her pencil skirt primly over her knees and listening carefully. For several moments heard nothing more than the sound of static silence on the other end. Mulder's jaw twitched angrily, but he said nothing as he pushed the rewind button, and then play again. Still, nothing but the soft scratch of metallic tape against the player head sounded over the speakers.

"It should be right here!" He scowled in confusion, rewinding and playing it yet again. The tape ran till it ended. But there was nothing to be heard.

"The entire tape is blank." Defeated, he pulled it off the tape machine. He had been so sure, so utterly sure this was the proof he needed. He had left behind everything else in the hopes that this one spool of flimsy, magnetized acetate would provide for him the evidence that he needed to reopen his work, to continue his research. It was heartbreaking to Scully, both as a scientist and as his friend.

"You know," she offered quietly. "An electrical surge in the outlet…the storm may have degaussed everything, erasing the entire tape." It was a theory, admittedly not a good one, but something for him to hold on to.

Mulder set the tape down, staring at it as it sat on the table between them.

"You still have nothing," Scully sighed sadly. All of that work, all of that danger, and he had come out with what? A lesser woman would have pointed out that this was the reason why he shouldn't have gone alone. But Scully wasn't that sort of person. She found it all very frustrating and disheartening.

"I may not have the X-files, Scully." He quietly looped another tape from his recent surveillance session onto the player. "But I still have my work."

It relieved her to hear that out of him, she realized. For all of his frustration and depression the last few weeks, she had feared he would let go of his search for the truth, for answers. Perhaps this excursion, though it turned up nothing of substantive value for his work had done the one thing her words had been unable to do - restore his drive to go on. 

Mulder stood, adjusting the tapes in the player, spooling the tapes one to the other. "And I've still got you." His green eyes glided towards hers briefly, appreciatively as she felt herself blush lightly. She shrugged self-consciously, looking away and nodding. For now, at least, as long Mulder was willing to chase his little green men, he still had her on his side. She looked up at him as he sat back down, and slipped the giant headphones over his ears.

"And I still have myself." He sighed, as he pressed play resignedly.

She smiled tightly at him, reaching out to squeeze his hand lightly as she rose, shooting him a parting, knowing nod. She turned to leave him, relieved at least in the knowledge that while they still had nothing for their efforts, they still had the work. And no matter how many shadowy, smoking men there were in the world, Mulder could still search for his truths and his sister. And he could at least count on Scully to still be there to help him out as best she could.


	8. Let It Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is mildly horrified by FBI scuttlebutt.

"Baxter, how are you doing over here?" Scully gently peeked around the shoulder of one of her pathology students, checking to see how their investigation of the chest cavity of their victim, a murder victim from a small, Maryland town that lacked the facilities for a full scale, autopsy needed in this sort of homicide case.

"All right, Agent Scully." Baxter was a tall, handsome kid from Iowa who was coolly stitching up the Y-incision with neat, practiced hands. She remembered he had mentioned once he had considered once going into surgery. "We are just finishing up here and then we'll send him back on his way to his family."

"Good." Scully nodded in approval to the other two students, Chung and Myers, both women, who were busying themselves with the clean up of their autopsy table and the neat arranging of their tools. "Make sure that you all turn in your full autopsy reports to me tomorrow with your theories on the causes of this man's death. Since this is the copy we will be turning into the local police, make sure it's as thorough and complete as possible. We want to make sure we are professionals here, even if you are still learning."

All three of her students nodded solemnly as they went about their work and she smiled with satisfaction on how well this group of pathology students was coming along. Chung in particular had worried her. She had been disturbed by much of what it took to try to pry the secrets out of the human body, but she had come along nicely in the few weeks they had been in the lab. Now she barely blinked at the sight of entrails or turned green as she dissected the human brain."

"Agent Scully?"

Across the lab, the tall, studious blonde of her group, Nerman, was standing by the autopsy bays doors, glancing out of towards someone in the hall. "There is someone here to see you?" She looked nervous as to whether to let the person in or not."

"Who is it?" Scully shrugged as Nerman stood back and allowed the familiar dark head of Fox Mulder to peek around the corner and glance around the bay before locking down on Scully's disapproving frown. "Hey, Scully, school about out?"

"Agent Mulder," she replied formally in a vain effort to remind him that this wasn't his basement office, but rather her autopsy classroom, where future pathologists were listening to their every word. "I'll be done with my class in a moment. Can you wait in the hallway till we are done?"

"Oh!" Mulder blinked, as if just noticing the two groups finishing up their respective bodies, his face turning a delicate shade of gray green as he nodded his head solemnly. "I'll just…wait out here…then." He popped his head back around the door as Nerman watched him scuttle away, an all too familiar-looking smile on the girl's face. She wasn't the first female she had run across who found Fox Mulder attractive. Most women actually thought that until he opened his mouth and the word "alien" popped out.

"Who is that, Agent Scully?" The young woman turned from the door, an appreciative glance over her shoulder towards the direction Mulder must have gone.

"Agent Mulder and I were partners for a time." Scully tried hard not to roll her eyes in irritation over yet another girl pooling into a pile of goo over Mulder. "Occasionally, we still keep in contact over cases we are working on."

"I can see why," Nerman grinned knowingly, winking in that annoying way that caused Scully to simply stare at her student in cold disapproval. Nerman demurred, suddenly, backing away nervously as she returned to her station.

"I'm sorry, Agent Scully, just…well…" She cleared her throat, her pretty face bright red as she turned on her heels and hurried back to cleaning up remains of her teams' autopsy, looking for all the world as if she wished a black hole would open up under her.

She shouldn't be so hard on her, Scully thought to herself. Nerman was a very talented pathologist, worked and studied hard, eager to please. She kicked herself for embarrassing the girl. all she wanted to do was to be friendly. Admittedly, Scully realized, it was precious hard for anyone to get close to Agent Dana Scully anymore, especially after her fiasco with Tom Colton. The idea of having to patiently explain to anyone Mulder's idiosyncrasies, praying that they didn't manage to say something to kick Mulder off on his full frontal, offensive mode. One could never tell with Mulder how he might actually play with others, sometimes he seemed the paragon of rational behavior, other times she wondered if he liked to get into his mental pissing contests merely out of the perverse pleasure of it.

After making sure her students would be fine on their own cleaning up, Scully moved out into the hallway where Mulder stood leaning against the far wall, tossing a bright, shiny red apple in his hand. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Mulder?"

"Brought you an apple. I heard it works on teachers, gets the easy A," Mulder cheerfully tossed it to her as she caught it with two hands. 

She frowned at it in bemusement. "Hoping to carry favor?" 

"More like hoping to ask for forgiveness for having my head up my ass," Mulder replied. "Of course, I expect I'll have my head up my ass quite a bit in the future, so don't expect such presents from me all of the time."

"Stop my beating heart." She tucked the apple into the pocket of her white lab coat, where it hung heavily. "Got to be more than you trying to bribe me with apples to bring you out here."

"Well, yeah." Mulder ducked his head as he shoved his hands into his trousers, his suit coat bunching up at the wrists. "I was hoping to assuage my growing sense of guilt here and take you to lunch."

"Lunch?" she snorted. "I think I'd rather just pass you my credit card bills."

"Wait till next paycheck at least. the Mulders may be well off, but I still have to work for my money."

"Keep that in mind when next you decide you are taking off to Puerto Rico in search of evidence of alien life." She frowned at him quizzically. "How did you get out of surveillance duty with Skinner?"

"I told him I had a prearranged visit with a doctor." Mulder grinned impishly. "Didn't have to explain that you're the doctor."

"Skinner will have your ass if he finds out, Mulder, no playing games this time."

"So what? I take an approved afternoon off and I even got someone to cover for me as well. Honestly, Scully I have so much evidence, I can bust their ass on bank fraud, racketeering, and money laundering, let alone just having skanky taste in strip clubs."

"Is 'skanky' even a legal term?" Scully wondered in sly amusement.

"It doesn't matter. What does matter is that Skinner's got me chained to the tape to punish me for being a bad boy, not because of any case we are building. I don't think he'll notice over much if I take an afternoon to play hooky and have a sandwich."

"I still wouldn't push my luck, Mulder. Your damn lucky you have a job still, it's only been a week, I wouldn't go around pressing my luck with him."

"I don't know, Scully. I don't think Skinner wants to get rid of me. Not yet at least." Mulder leaned against the far wall again, staring at a random sign describing what to do in the area in case of an emergency. "It makes you wonder what they have on Skinner that has him dancing to their tune. What sort of shit do they have on him that let's them grab him by the balls like that."

"Who says they have anything on him?" Scully began, stopping at Mulder's incredulous look. "All right, I don't know. Perhaps they know if he's cheated on his wife?" It was a common enough scandal in the nations capital. She wouldn't be surprised if her boss did it too.

"No," Mulder shook his head thoughtfully, pulling at his bottom lip. "Skinner doesn't strike me as the type who'd step out on his wife, not unless their marriage was on the rocks." He shook his head softly, concentrating. "He's much more the 'doing good for your country' type, perhaps convincing him that whatever secrets and lies they deal in it's for national security."

"Maybe it's just 'semper fi'. I think he was a Marine before he was ever in the FBI."

"How do you know he was a Marine?" Mulder was impressed.

Scully shrugged. How did one describe that utter aura that surrounded the typical US Marine, that mystique they had beat into them from the moment they stepped into boot camp. "I grew up with a lot of Marines. You sort of had to when your father was in the Navy. You get used to them, can spot someone who has been in the Corp a mile away. They have a strong sense of honor and duty, _semper fidelus_ , their brotherhood. Almost like a more mature, armed fraternity, with less booze and naked women."

"Who'd join a fraternity like that?" Mulder snorted in mock horror.

"I didn't think Oxford had fraternities."

"It doesn't, but God knows sometimes I wish it did." Mulder sighed semi-longingly. "So Skinner's sense of duty is what keeps him at the beck and call of our friend you think?"

"It certainly explains why it is he'd willingly try to stand up for you, doesn't it?"

"It makes me wonder more why it is he would want to," Mulder replied carefully, as in front of them the double doors that led into the autopsy bay opened and chattering voiced filtered outside.

Scully couldn't explain the vaguely guilty feeling she had, standing there chatting with Mulder, as her students filed out in their surgical scrubs, waving farewells to her as they moved down the hallway. Perhaps it was that she was out there, enjoying a conversation instead of watching over her students like a good instructor should. Still, they weren't teenagers, but grown adults, all of them with medical training. Leaving them alone for five minutes surely wasn't the end of the world, even at the highly guarded Marine Base known as Quantico. The last student to leave was Nerman. Her eyes were on her notes, but she did glance from Scully to Mulder, shooting her instructor a polite smile, one that somewhat relaxed as she grinned at Mulder. He obliged with a friendly smile in return to the pretty blonde as she hurried down the hall after her compatriots.

"Checking out my students, Mulder?" Scully shot him a warning look.

"She was checking me out first," he defended himself. "I was being polite."

"All the way down the hall?"

"She's not my type." 

"Tall, leggy, blonde and devastatingly intelligent isn't your type?"

He shrugged. He didn't look particularly enthused by the idea. "I think she's more curious about why you and I are standing here in the hall talking."

"Why?" She frowned vaguely up at him.

"Probably assumes the two of us are banging like bunnies in the broom closet," he deadpanned with all of the seriousness of pronouncing that someone had died.

Scully nearly choked on her tongue. "What?" She spluttered all over her medical scrubs, her face burning as she stared up at him.

"Rumors, Scully. You get to hear a lot of shit when you aren't hiding in the basement." Mulder seemed unfazed by it. "Apparently there are a lot of young men out there in the Bureau who think you are a nice piece of ass. I can always hook you up…"

He grunted as she smacked his middle, totally horrified at what he was implying. "Mulder, you won't be my pimp for undersexed, bored…pinheads!" She ground out the words between clenched teeth, seeing red in her vision for the briefest of moments. "Why in the hell would anyone assume…"

She stopped, speechless in outrage.

"That we would be sleeping together?" His green eyes glittered with wicked amusement.

"Yes," she hissed through her teeth, suddenly feeling exposed and embarrassed in a manner she hadn't felt since high school. "Mulder, so help me God, if you've been encouraging…"

"Have I ever, ever been anything other than a gentleman where you are concerned, Scully?" All teasing was set aside for deadly seriousness from Mulder. She had obviously hit a nerve.

"No," she acknowledged quickly. "But why in the hell…"

"It's the dregs of the FBI, Scully. They do the worst jobs in the Bureau. They are bored, they are curious and they assume everyone is sleeping with everyone else, because it's better than the truth."

"Which is?" Scully raised agitated eyebrows in alarm.

"That the likelihood of us seeing any sort of action, let alone with each other, is about slim to none." He shrugged. "Besides, it's Spooky Mulder, Scully. The fact that you not only agreed to be my partner, but you stayed my partner for as long as you did, and you didn't manage to shoot me confuses everyone. Obviously it must mean I'm fucking your brains and all common sense out to make you stay with me."

His assertions made her snort loudly, the ridiculousness of the situation boggling her mind. "Mulder, I stayed with you because I believe in you and your work."

"I know that, you know that, but to the rest of them I'm a crazy asshole who howls at the moon, remember?" His smile was sad and ironic. "Besides, you have to admit, everyone goes through their 'sleeping with a partner' phase in the FBI. I think it's a rite of passage."

"I highly doubt everyone does, Mulder. It's against Bureau regulations, everyone knows it."

"We both have managed to do it at some point."

"And how well did it work out either time?"

"Ehh, well they don't know that." Mulder nodded his head knowingly. "Rumors are rumors, Scully, no more than that. You and I know the truth and that is all that matters, right?"

She wanted to say no. She wanted to rail that her she hated her reputation as an agent besmirched, her professionalism called to question by a bunch of knuckle draggers who had nothing better to do than nitpick at others out of boredom. But what was the point? Mulder was right, they knew the truth and nothing else mattered. They had bigger and more pressing concerns for the two of them, Mulder's work, the truth, just what the strange smoking man was up to and why he was so interested in the two of them.

"As I'm learning with everything lately Scully, let it be." Mulder mused, philosophically. "I can't change the fact that Skinner is sending me on shit jobs from now until eternity and you can't help the fact that people assume you are sleeping with your handsome, if some what deranged, former partner."

"Deranged, huh?" Scully chuckled. "Well perhaps that much is true."

Mulder grinned broadly, his entire face smirking as he grabbed her elbow.

"Come on, let's head to the commissary, my treat."

"Commissary? Aren't you afraid people will see us together."

"Hell, Scully, if they think we are sleeping together already, what's the point in us meeting clandestinely at the Watergate? Might as well give some bored young, agent—to-be something to talk about."

"You actually think that rumor is funny, don't you?"

"If you can't laugh at the idiocy of the world, it will drive you crazy." Mulder replied.

"You're already crazy."

"Hence I should take my own advice. Just let it be, Scully."

"Fine," she agreed, grumpily following behind him. "Just as long as I get to shoot whoever it is starting these rumors."

"That's the spirit!" He laughed as he slopped lazily down the hall.


	9. Everything's Legal in Jersey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder sucks about going to Jersey.

Her desk phone rang so shrilly she nearly fell out of her chair as she lurched from her computer monitor to grab it, knocking her reading glasses askew on her face.

"Scully," she barked, trying to realign her frames and hold the phone to her ear at the same time.

"You sound like your day is going as well as mine." Mulder was as grumpy as she was, with the sounds of bustling people murmuring in the background.

"Just deep in thought is all." Scully glanced back towards the article she had been reading online, one that had nothing to do on her latest autopsy. It had to do with government genetic testing and their recent interest of late in autoimmune diseases, such as HIV and AIDS. "What's up?"

"Skinner's unchained me long enough to give me some time in the yard." Mulder sounded less than thrilled. "I'm heading up to New Jersey for a case."

"Jersey? Don't you have bad luck up there?" Scully wrinkled her nose, remembering all to well Mulder's stint in a drunk tank in Atlantic City after pissing off the local police enough they felt the need to incarcerate him.

"Funny you say that, so far no sign of beast women. Just regular, run of the mill, 'local police have their head up their ass' sort of case." He sounded less than thrilled. "I think Skinner's hoping that if he shows me how the other boys and girls play out in the sand box I'll pick up the habit."

Scully smiled and chuckled as she skimmed through the article on her computer screen, trying to even imagine Mulder taking on a straight case without a chip on his shoulder and a sardonic smile on his lips. "You know, Mulder, there are a lot of legitimate cases out there that the FBI solves everyday with not a mutant or paranormal experience in sight."

"I've done my duty doing the FBI's dirty work, Scully," Mulder groused and not without a point. "I did three years in Violent Crimes working on the sort of cases that would make most other agents run home weeping. I had nightmares about the sort of things I saw everyday. And I played by the FBI's rules then."

"You were their golden boy then, too." Scully silently wondered just what sort of horrors Mulder had seen in his years in VC and thought perhaps it was better she didn't ask. She had seen Barnett just months ago and how that case had twisted Mulder inside out. Perhaps it was best to leave well enough alone.

"Playing by the rules doesn't get answers, Scully. It gets results. And those results aren't always what happened. You know that. With the advent of more advanced DNA methods, we've been able to overturn innumerable cases just in the last few years."

"If you plan to use DNA to prove any of your cases, Mulder, I'm sure Skinner would die of sheer joy and astonishment."

"Funny, Scully, very funny." He didn't sound amused.

"Seriously, Mulder, what's a good, old fashioned murder case? Sherlock Holmes did it all of the time."

"Did I ever tell you I once saw Arthur Conan Doyle's grave?"

"Is it impressive?"

"Not really, more like a cross in some graveyard somewhere. You'd think he'd have something a bit more grand."

"Maybe he was a man of simple pleasures."

"Maybe he was a man who knew stupid teenagers would try to make out on it."

"Mulder, you didn't?" Scully was both horrified and hopelessly amused.

"You've met Phoebe? What was a man to do?"

"I'm hanging up the phone now, Mulder," Scully sighed, shaking her head slowly. She had to wonder sometimes if her partner's decided lack of shame was a vain attempt to shock her Catholic sensibilities out of some perverse need to break Scully out of her own, personal comfort zone. If he couldn't push her out of science, perhaps push her out of her sense of propriety?

"Don't hang up," Mulder wheedled. "Seriously, I want to know your opinion."

"On what?"

"On why Skinner assigned me this?" He sounded flummoxed. "Do you think it's another attempt to drive me out?"

"Maybe Skinner thought too much of you listening to mob lieutenants discussing their sexual preferences might give your already oversexed mind bad ideas."

Mulder at least chuckled.

"I don't know, Mulder, maybe there is something more to all of this than you know. Maybe Skinner knows something about all of this that you haven't seen yet, there is some strange angle to it that he can't say out loud because of his position, but he's hoping you're the one to ferret it out. Perhaps you're the only one to ferret it out." Hopefully that soothed Mulder's wounded ego.

"What could possibly be strange, weird, and exciting about the Newark sewer system," Mulder moaned. "And don't say albino alligators, Scully, because that's a well known fact."

"If by 'well known fact' you mean urban legend, I'll agree with you there." Her mouth twitched. "You going to be out of town long?"

"I don't think so, but I'll call you tonight if I need you to feed the fish." He paused momentarily as she heard him speak to someone, presumably hailing a cab. "Anyway, I got to get going." She could almost see his smile on the other end of the line. "See, I was a good boy, I called this time to tell you I was doing something stupid."

"At least it's on orders this time," she replied. "Just don't make me fly up there to save your ass."

"The only thing killing me in that place is the fumes. I'll talk to you later, Scully."

She heard the click on the other end and lowered the receiver, grinning despite herself. Mulder really could be a child when he wanted to be and it seemed this was one of those days when he was determinedly pissed off with the world. She hoped, for Skinner's sake, there was something on this case that would intrigue Mulder. He was in a foul sort of mood and if he felt he was being handed fipple to keep him docile, he'd throw a temper tantrum just because he could. She could feel a headache forming just thinking of it. At least that was one perk of no longer being his partner, she reasoned as she returned to her article. She didn't have to be the one to smooth over Mulder's personality problems in public anymore.


	10. They Don't Want Us Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully has to talk sense into a pouting Mulder.

When she heard about the blow up, she feared the worst. Rumors had a tendency of flying at the speed of light in the FBI, and she happened to be in the Hoover Building, delivering a forensic report, when she'd heard about Mulder's blow up in Skinner's office. It perhaps would have never left the four walls of the Assistant Director's office, had it not been witnessed by one of Skinner's investigative teams who had wasted no time in sharing the latest exploits of the unhinged Agent Mulder. As people chuckled and shook their heads, Scully had wisely kept her mouth shut and decided to hunt down her erstwhile former partner to see just how badly his ego was bruised by the experience. It wasn't hard to find him. Mulder in snits liked to run or walk and as he was not in his running clothes she surmised he was walking somewhere. The National Mall was a favorite spot of his, wide open, relatively quiet at night and a place where he could sit and brood in peace with relatively few interruptions. She found him beneath the lights of the Washington Monument, staring up at the tall obelisk of white marble, its red lights blinking at the top, like pulsating eyes watching over the District of Columbia. She wondered, fancifully, what it saw up there, what sort of secrets and lies fell under its shadow everyday.

Mulder's back was too her as she walked up. He was so lost in thought he didn't even hear her steps behind him. "Is this seat taken?" She pointed towards the empty half of the park bench beside where he sat.

"No," he drawled, his green eyes dark and inscrutable as he lazily shrugged. "But I should warn you, I'm experiencing violent impulses."

"Well, I'm armed." She patted the side where her firearm rested. "So I'll take my chances." She settled easily beside him, wrapping her trench coat around her slight frame to ward off the thick onset of dew in the early-summer evening. "I hear you really endeared yourself to Assistant Director Skinner today." She gently tried to pry open the touchy subject, glancing ruefully sideways at Mulder who grimaced painfully.

"You know, sometimes, it just gets really hard to smile through it when they ask you to bend down and grab your ankles." He glared moodily at the Washington Monument, as it stood tall and pale against the black, night sky.

"It's not exactly as if you've ever tried to fit into the program," she pointed out. Mulder had relished his role of the misunderstood outsider, the cellar dweller who was always fighting against the system that was the FBI. From the moment she had met him he had tried to cultivate the image of the rebel, being above the rules, beyond them. Now when he was being forced to live with them he yelled as if the FBI were the ones who had pushed him to it from the start. In his current mood, she reasoned, he probably wasn't willing to hear that sort of criticism.

"No," Mulder murmured thoughtfully. "No, I've been think a lot about that lately. I've been thinking about leaving."

"The Bureau?" Not this again, she sighed mentally. Hadn't she already just convinced him not to do this? Her head ached at having this repeated argument with him. "What would you do?"

"Pursue my work in the paranormal somehow."

With what resources, she wanted to retort. "You could request a transfer to Quantico. Come back to the Behavioral Science Unit." At least they would be closer, she thought. They could join forces behind the scenes again, work much more easily together than they did now, separated on opposite sides of the city.

Mulder stood up in agitation, sighing in aggravation as he turned on her. "They don't want us working together, Scully. And right now, that's the only reason I can think of to stay."

At least he appreciated the efforts she went for him, she thought, trying to find some silver lining in all of this to drag him out of the black hole he was determined to dig for himself. "What about this case you're working on?" At least, she reasoned, it was a real field case, rather than being stuck behind a desk listening to endless hours of tape.

"It's a zero," he sighed in frustration. "They transferred it to our forensics lab. Look, Scully, I know what you're trying to do?"

"Maybe I can request to do the autopsy." She ignored him.

"It's an exercise," Mulder insisted. "Skinner is just rubbing my nose in this one. There's nothing to it."

Mulder was in full on sulk, she realized. He so badly wanted to pout, he was missing the obvious, "There's a dead body, isn't there?"

"Yeah? So?"

"You are an investigator, Mulder, not an over-glorified eavesdropper. There is a dead body, Sherlock Holmes, and you are ignoring it for your own, personal, egotistical snit."

Mulder stared at her, open-mouthed. "It's not a snit," he replied defensively.

"It is one. You are pissed because Skinner dared to put you on a murder case because you believe it's below your intelligence and your skill." she shrugged placidly.

"Scully, it's a John Doe in a sewer drain in Newark," Mulder fairly yelled, causing several nighttime passers by to pause and stare at them quizzically. "It's not even an FBI matter, Newark PD just have their heads up their asses and don't know what to do with it."

"Think about it, Mulder, it's Newark, New Jersey, hardly Mayberry, USA. And their police department, who perhaps deal with hundreds of John Does in the sewer every year, call the FBI in particular to look at the case because they are confused by it."

Mulder's only reaction was to scowl darkly at her.

"So, if they don't know what to do with it, perhaps we should start looking into the dead body to see why it is they are so confused, don't you think?"

Mulder chewed his tongue silently at her speculative stare.

"Mulder, I know it isn't a straight up, stranger-than-hell X-file with all of the bells and whistles that you like. There are no alien abductions, no ghostly phenomenon, and it looks about as boring as watching paint dry. But it is still a puzzle, one that someone can't explain. Like it or not, part of what drew us both to the FBI is the fact that we are drawn to puzzles. And this is one I think my talents as a scientist can be effective on." She cocked her head, smiling sweetly at him, despite his dour expression. "Let me have the body. I'll poke at it, and I'll see if there is anything to it. And if it turns out to be nothing more than a homeless man who died of some sort of horrible disease that stewed in the cesspool of Newark's sewer system, I will acquiesce to the fact that you were right."

Mulder didn't look in the least bit swayed. "And if I'm right, then what?"

"Then?" She threw her hands up in the air. Then what, indeed? "Then I'll accept the fact that the FBI is indeed jerking you around, and perhaps its best you quit before you do bodily harm to Skinner and have your ass tossed in jail for it."

"You wouldn't fight me leaving?" She couldn't tell if he sounded hurt by that or not.

"Not if it was what you wanted," she replied. It would bother her like hell, she realized, especially given that she would no longer be asked or relied upon as much for the work he did. She'd become nothing more than Mulder's vague contact in the FBI, in touch with him from time to time whenever he had a body to investigate or a random bit of scientific minutia he needed more information on. She'd become a walking, talking medical reference library, nothing more.

"And what if you do find something?" There was the tiniest, vague hint of a glimmer in Mulder's eyes, one that didn't quite reach his still pouting expression.

"Then you'll have to admit that there is more to what Skinner is up to than you and your pompous profiling skills have come up with, and that you have a real murder case on your hands."

"What if it's an X-file," he murmured softly, as if afraid that the passers by might hear.

"Maybe that's why he gave it to you in the first place," Scully replied simply. "But we won't know till I get a chance to look at that body."

"All right," Mulder nodded, acquiescing quietly. "I think it's crap, Scully, but if you think you'll find something."

"I don't know if I'll find anything, Mulder. But there is a dead man who has as much right of having his murder solved as anyone. And even if it isn't an X-file, at least you and I have done something good for someone else. And really, in the end, isn't that the important part?"

Mulder look visibly stung for the briefest of moments. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

"Good." She rose from the bench, wandering over to where he stood, looping and arm around one of his. "Seriously, Mulder, can't you control your temper just a little?"

He at least looked a bit discomforted. "I seem to excel at making an ass of myself where authority is concerned."

"Perhaps you should seeking counseling for that." She tugged at his arm gently as she led him off the Mall. He followed, tucking his hands in his pockets, pinning Scully's arm to his side.

"I would, but I tend to run into authority issues with my own therapist. Makes it a hell of a lot more difficult."

"Why can't you just be a normal basket case, Mulder, you know, the sort they give medication to and send on their merry way."

"You see, then you get to that all important word, 'normal'. What does it mean to be 'normal'?"

"Perhaps you should have majored in philosophy instead of psychology," she teased.

"Can't study psychology if you don't have anything wrong with your head, Scully. First rule of psychologists."

"It takes one to know one?"

"We nut cases can spot each other a mile away. It's our talent." He finally grinned cheekily beside her.

"Mulder, what in the hell am I going to do with you?"

"I don't know, Scully. But in my professional opinion, you're as big of a whack job sticking it out and helping me as I am chasing little green men with a gun and a flashlight."

"Maybe I am, Mulder. Maybe I am."


	11. Dear God, What Is That Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully meets the Flukeman.

There were all sorts of legends regarding the strange and weird creatures that supposedly lived in the depths of the sewers surrounding the New York City Metropolitan area. The more creative ranged from colonies of mutant freaks, to rats so large they could carry off small children, to albinos alligators, the descendants of poor creatures flushed down the toilet by some cruel parent ages ago. Scully had heard them all, usually from her older brother, Bill, as they sat up well past the time their mother had sent them to bed, telling each other scary stories into the wee hours for the mild scare factor and nightmare-potential thrills. At seven, those stories had seemed so beyond fantastical that she had taken them for no more than what they were; ghost stories. But nothing in those old ghost stories could prepare her for the phone call from Mulder demanding her to get on the first plane she could catch to New Jersey.

"I don't need a plane, Mulder I can drive." She glanced longingly at her fully packed briefcase. She had just been walking out of the door to head home for the evening.

"Takes too long, I need you here now." He had that distracted, excited tone, as if he had just found something he couldn't quite believe. "And I think you and your scientific brain will appreciate this one."

"What?" She sighed heavily, reaching for her purse.

"Proof that our killer really is a giant, blood-sucking worm," Mulder breathed, almost in awe.

Scully paused, her purse hanging midway in the air in the act of her slinging over her slim shoulder. "Excuse me."

"It was in the sewage treatment plant, Scully. This creature." Mulder nearly stuttered in sheer amazement. "It's part fluke worm, part human."

A vision from some horrible, drive-in, B horror movie from the 1960's flashed into Scully's brain, and she rolled her eyes as she grabbed for her things. "Mulder, did you fall asleep with the TV on again?"

"I'm not making this up, Scully. Just get up here if you can." He clicked off the line without waiting for her affirmation, leaving Scully to stare at the receiver of her phone in mute irritation. He assumed, she realized, that she would do this without question. He assumed she had nothing better to do with her life. As usual, Mulder just waltzed in expecting her to drop everything to help him without giving a thought about if she had plans for her evening or things she wanted to do. Which, she noted drearily, he would of course assume, because first, she always did go running to him whenever he asked or did something incredibly stupid and second, she had told him she would do anything to help him further his work outside of the X-files. She had foolishly thought it would end at the autopsy she had volunteered herself on.   
It now appeared that it included looking at his "flukeman". She grumbled loudly as she made her way to Dulles and booked the first commuter flight she could get to Newark International. Within two hours she walked into Middlesex County Psychiatric Hospital, her high heels creating a steady clip as she marched down the hallway to where Mulder's tall figure slouched against a wall watching her.

"I've decided to forgo our normal greetings and tell you that it is physiologically impossible that a half human-half fluke creature to exist, ever." Scully's voice was breathless as she confronted Mulder, hands on hips. "Chromosomes differences aside, we don't even have the scientific capabilities yet to perform such a gross mutation as to artificially create anything vaguely resembling that. John Barnett and his salamander hand aside, Mulder, I don't see how…"

Mulder politely listened to her tirade and then gently grabbed her arm, turning her down the hallway walking her down the white tile corridor.

"I'm not saying that a single thing you said is wrong," Mulder murmured as he turned a corner and led her down a hallway filled with single doors, all with little windows in each one. As Scully passed them she could see the lights on in most of them and occasionally a human face peeking out, eyeing she and Mulder as they walked past. She tensed ever so slightly as she remembered for a moment this was a psychiatric hospital.

"Why would they bring your creature here, Mulder?" She frowned sideways at him. "If it truly is what you say it is, it should be brought to a regular medical hospital for study."

"I don't think that a regular medical hospital is quite equipped for something like this." He stopped at one door, the window inside of it dark as the lights in the room were off. Scully gazed first at it and then at him questioningly.

"It doesn't like the light," he offered obliquely.

Scully shivered as she remembered the woman, Eve, they had met, with her gnashing teeth and singsong voice. She hadn't liked the light either. "We can't go in to see it?"

"It's not exactly sentient." Mulder leaned into the window, squinting his eyes to further see inside. "Come take a look. I think I see it back by the pipes, under the sink."

Scully stepped up to the door and stared through the glass, straining her eyes to see into the darkness. It took several moments for her sight to adjust and to make out the shapes within the room. There was a bed, untouched as far she could tell, a toilet, and a sink. She strained to look in and around that area for something that vaguely resembled what she imagined Mulder's mutant monster to look like.

"I don't see it," she muttered as she shifted her head slightly to enable further light into the room from the outside. As she did, a shaft of light cut through the blackness, filling the area beside the sink covered in pipes feeding into the plumbing. Something pale and glistening moved ever so slightly.

"There it is." Mulder pointed towards the piping. "Tucked away in the corner, behind the pipes."

Sure enough, two milky, pale eyes blinked at her over a horribly misshapen mouth, fitted with four, perfect fangs. Just in the shape of the worm bites she had discovered on the first victim. As if sensing she was watching it, the creature scuttled further into the shadows, out of the light and her line of sight.

"Oh my God," she breathed, her brain nearly blanking out of sheer revolt at what she saw. It could possibly be true. It was a scientific impossibility. She turned stunned eyes to Mulder, looking for an explanation.

"I don't know if you can see it from here," Mulder pointed back to where the creature lay, hiding. "But it has no sex organs. It's genderless."

Scully glanced back towards the creatures. All she could make out was the reflection from its unnatural, nearly human eyes. "Platyhelminthis are often hermaphroditic," she responded automatically, her scientific explanation kicking in where scientific reasoning could not. "Mulder, this is amazing. Its vestigial features appear to be parasitic, but it has primate physiology."

Mulder nodded, unable to say anything as he stared at the creature beyond in mixed horror and fascination.

"Where the hell did it come from?" Scully couldn't imagine even the cesspool that was the Newark sewer system could produce something as fantastical as that.

Mulder shrugged. "I don't know." He frowned in mild consternation. "But it looks like I'm going to have to tell Skinner that his suspect is a giant, blood-sucking worm after all." Despite Mulder's love of the X-files and all of the strange things that came with it, he didn't look pleased that this was the only answer he had to give his boss. And yet, with the proof sitting in the room just beyond, no matter if science couldn't explain it yet, there was all the proof Skinner needed for Mulder's report. For once, at least, no one would think Mulder crazy when he came out with his improbably theory.

"The only thing we're missing is the identity of the body in the sewer." Mulder moved from the window in the door, as if finally disgusted by the sight of the strange creature within.

At least she knew that information, Scully thought to herself. She fished out the print out she had made of the photograph of the victims arm. She had cleaned the area around the man's tattoo, and it stood out now clear against the man's waxy, ashen skin. "He was Russian, an engineer on a cargo freighter. He had a tattoo on his forearm." She passed Mulder the photograph. He studied in intently for several moments. "I didn't make the connection until I detected that that was the name 'Dmitri' spelled in Cyrillic lettering." 

"How did you make the connection at all," he wondered, glancing up from the photo.

She passed him the tabloid newspaper, the one that had appeared surreptitiously under her office door in Quantico, without a name, without a hint as to who left it for her. "Somebody shoved this under my door." She had wondered since it appeared who had left it and if somehow Mulder had found another mysterious informant to aid him with the random tidbits of inside information that Deep Throat had always managed to provide for them. "I guess you really do have a friend in the FBI." She stared at Mulder pointedly.

He didn't have a response. He was as clueless as to who their new benefactor's identity as she was. But whoever they were, they obviously didn't want either of them to give up the fight, not just yet anyway.

"Mulder, when you see Skinner to hand in your field report..." She paused, shrugging uncomfortably. How to not make this sound like begging, she wondered. "I know that it's your decision, but I hope that you know that I'd consider it more than a professional loss if you decided to leave."

As the word came out, she hoped, frantically, that he didn't make more of that statement than she had meant. She had found a friend in Mulder, one she hadn't expected when they were first partnered together, and it would pain her to see him go after all they had been through, to see him go. And obviously, she thought as she glanced at the paper, there were others trying to tell him the very same thing.

Mulder's full mouth smiled ever so slightly as he passed back the paper and picture and glanced back at the room with the creature inside of it. His gaze was thoughtful, before turning to Scully. "I haven't made any decisions yet. I guess that all is dependent on what comes out of my meeting with Skinner tomorrow."

"He won't open the X-files again, Mulder. Not based on this." 

"No, he won't. But maybe it will give me something more to look forward to than twiddling my thumbs and developing a two-pack-of-seeds diet."

"Maybe. I just think there is so much more you have to give to the FBI, so many questions you can still answer here. Look what you did here; you discovered…" She stared at the door to the creatures room. "Hell, Mulder, I don't know what you discovered. But certainly no other agent would have had the tenacity you did in searching for it. That body you discovered would have gone down as another nameless John Doe in the Newark PD's log if you hadn't followed up on it."

"Which I wouldn't have if you hadn't guilt me into it. I'm no hero here, Scully. I wouldn't have done that without you. And I wouldn't have made that connection without you either. You were the one who pushed it. You were the one who found the fluke worm." His expression became sad as he stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. "And if I didn't have you pushing me, I don't know if I'd have a reason to stay. And I'm not so sure I would want to."

She laughed at that idea. "You seemed to work fine before I came along."

"Perhaps not as well as you might think. Remember, you were sent down to keep me in line."

"I thought I was sent to spy on you.".

"Anyone tell you that you make a piss poor spy," Mulder's murmured lightly, though his gaze was all too serious.

"Maybe because the truth interests me much more than the lies."

Mulder nodded with a knowing smile.


	12. Regeneration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder decides to stay rather than leave the FBI.

It was a different monument this time. The temple-like façade of the Lincoln Memorial glowed soft white as the marble was caught in the spotlights, illuminating Mulder hunched over, staring mindlessly at the giant statue of a pensive Abraham Lincoln. She had guessed once again he would be on the National Mall. She was beginning to read Mulder's moods and habits rather well now. That thought wasn't nearly as disturbing as it should have been. In almost a repeat of his temper tantrum a few days earlier, he didn't even noticed as she walked up behind him. Once again she murmured, "Is this seat taken?"

He turned on her, shrugging when he saw her standing there. "No," a faint smirk crossed his face. "But I should warn you, I may reek a bit of the sewer.

"I'll take my chances," she teased, sighing as she sat beside him. "You talked to Skinner today?" She expected to hear that he had turned in his resignation. He sounded as if he had his mind made up since the beginning of this case.

"Success in our work is imperative, Scully. Reinstatement of the X-files must be undeniable," Mulder quoted, tossing a sunflower seed shell across the summer green grass of the Mall.

"That came from Skinner?" Scully was dubiously surprised.

"No," Mulder shook his head, glancing sideways at her. "We have a friend in the FBI."

Again with this mysterious person. She watched Mulder for a long moment. "I thought you might be interested in the lab results on the biology of the fluke larva." She opened the file she brought with her. "Dissection and analysis indicates reproductive and physiological cross-traiting, resulting in a sort quasi-vertebrate human."

"Human?" Mulder blinked in surprise as he glanced at her file, realizing what this meant. His monster wasn't an evolved form of worm, but rather a mutated form of human being.

"Yes," she replied. "But still capable of spontaneous regeneration, like any fluke or flatworm."

"How does that happen?"

"Radiation," she replied promptly. It was the only thing on this planet that could explain such strange changes to human DNA and cell structure. "Abnormal cell fusion. The suppression of natural genetic processes." She closed her file with a snap, feeling vaguely ill at what those findings really meant. "Mulder, nature didn't make this thing. We did."

Mulder hardly looked surprised. He sighed heavily, taking the folder from Scully's offering hand. He flipped through it, pausing to stare at the horrific pictures of human beings, all scarred and handicapped by varying degrees of radiation mutation.

"I know these," he murmured. "These are from Chernobyl."

"That creature came off a decommissioned Russian freighter that was used in the disposal of salvage material from the meltdown. It was born in a…in a primordial soup of radioactive sewage." If Scully didn't know her own history, she would have sworn that story was straight from science fiction, worthy of a Godzilla film. But she had seen it with her own eyes, as had several other doctors and scientists, all of whom were probing the remains of the poor, disfigured creature with guilty horror and scientific fascination.

Mulder stared at the pictures in front of him, frowning in sorrow as he studied them. "You know, they say three species disappear off this planet every day. You wonder how many new ones are being created."

He stood, closing the folder and wandered to the reflecting pool that stood nearby, staring at it's translucent darkness, like black glass, reflecting perfectly the image of the white, marble temple behind them, stark against the night. Scully rose and followed him to where he stood in thoughtful silence.

"I called Skinner out about the closing of the X-files," he finally said, not looking up from the dark shine. "I told him those men didn't have to die. At least one man could have been saved if the FBI actually cared enough to pay attention to these types of cases. They had us, they had the X-files, and we could have stopped this."

"Stopped what? This creature was born out of an accident you and I had nothing to do with."

"I'm not just talking about this fluke man, Scully. Reopening of the X-files is imperative." He turned to stare down at her. "This will keep happening again and again, you know. Other cases like this will slip through the cracks and become forgotten without us."

"But it's not just about all of those other cases, is it? It's about your sister." She sighed. Her feet in their high heels began to ache and she stooped to sit on the concrete edge of the reflecting pool, looking up at Mulder's tall figure. "You spoke to your friend in the FBI then?"

"He called me," Mulder admitted. "He wants us to force the X-files open." Mulder looked at the autopsy report folder still in his hand. "With cases like this, we stand a good chance."

"Would you rather open the X-files and deal with all of that again, Mulder?" She blinked at him. "You were the one who just days ago was saying you would leave and go out on your own."

"And you were the one who kept telling me I still had a lot to stay for at the FBI," he replied promptly.

"I know, but think about it. All of the harassment, all of the bureaucracy, all of the interference with your work. Do you think that would go away if the X-files were re-opened?"

"I thought you wanted the truth, Scully." She could hear the hostile argument brewing in his tone.

"I do, Mulder, and I want to work on the X-files, don't get me wrong. But I want to work on the X-files on our terms, not someone else. I want the work to be our work and not for someone's agenda." All of her old doubts about Deep Throat and his intentions resurfaced again. "I don't want to be played at the end of someone's puppet strings, Mulder. If we push for the X-files to be opened, we do it because we believe in the work and we believe in our evidence. I don't want to do this to fill someone's agenda."

"I don't even know who this person is."

"Precisely," she replied. "I was brought on to the X-files because of someone's agenda, Mulder. This time I when the X-files comes back, I don't want that silent pressure there, hanging over us. We are searching for the truth, here, for answers."

"Perhaps someone else is too." Mulder sighed, shrugging absently, and turning around to face the Lincoln Memorial once again. "Regenerating those parts that were cut off must be a bitch?"

Scully stared at him in confusion, wondering for a moment if he was referring to the fluke creature. "It's not the first time we've seen regeneration in a human on a case, there was Barnett…"

"I wasn't talking about cases, Scully." His voice was low and husky in the dark. "I meant us, you, me, everyone."

Was he talking about the lack of the X-files in his life, of the lack of Scully as his partner, or his still private pain over his missing sister or all of the above? Knowing Mulder it could be any combination of the three.

"We just have to have faith that in the end that all the pain won't be for naught." Scully staredg at the memorial in front of them, and the old, sad, and wise face of Abraham Lincoln, etched forever in gleaming marble. "That in the end we can get back those things that were taken from us and once again be whole people."

"Maybe," Mulder nodded vaguely. "Can I keep the file for the report to Skinner?"

"That's what I brought it here for."

"Thanks." He turned back to her. "It's late, Scully. Pretty woman like you shouldn't be walking around here alone."

"It's the National Mall, Mulder, they keep it pretty well guarded."

"What, one sleepy, graying old grandpa going to protect you from a potential attacker?"

"I suppose you forgot I'm a federal agent and am armed." Scully rose herself, both irritated and vaguely pleased at Mulder's clumsy attempt at chivalry.

"I'll still walk you back to your car." He slipped a hand behind her, to the small of her back, the familiar, gentlemanly gesture he hadn't used on her in what felt like forever. She distinctly felt each of his fingertips through the fabric of her clothes as she relaxed under the gentle pressure and allowed him to guide her in front of him. If she lied to herself, she could almost convince herself that this was just like old times. It was comforting in a particularly Mulder-ish sort of way, not meant to convey dominance, more a reassurance that no matter what, he was there to back her up, to be to the rescue if something should happen she couldn't take care of alone.

"I should be insulted you implied that I couldn't take care of myself," she shot back, though she didn't shrug him off.

"A man can't show a polite gesture anymore?"

"It's not recommended, no." Scully grinned sideways at him.

"Chivalry is truly dead," Mulder mourned with fake solemnity.

"I don't know, Mulder, keep this up and there might be a rebirth."

"If I can't bring back the X-files, perhaps, I can bring back that." He replied, only partially mocking.

"At least you can bring back that," she agreed softly.


	13. One More Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder calls in a favor to Scully.

Say what you wanted about rabbit food, Scully thought to herself, but at this moment she didn't care if you put grass clippings in front of her, she could probably eat a whole bag of them, with relish. It was one of those days where she had an early morning start, two classes and an autopsy before two in the afternoon, and she had no time to even eat the now stale bagel that sat forlornly on the top of her desk. She had grabbed it on her way in as a quick and easy breakfast and had set it down in what she had hoped would be her quiet time before her first class. But then one of her students had dropped in, wanting to chat. That had caused her to run late to her first class, and the bagel…well, it had been forgotten. Now Scully glanced at it over the top of the salad she had grabbed from the commissary and wondered just how stale the chewy ring of bread was after four hours. Would it be terribly bad, she mused hungrily, if she went ahead and ate it? After all, it was a bread product, not a refrigerated one, it could sit out for long hours before consumption without being the worse for wear. And her neat, low fat, mixed green salad was looking rather puny after having missed her breakfast and then spent hours on her feet, burning necessary calories. She had made up her mind to suck it up and just eat the stupid thing when her phone jangled harshly next to her, causing her to start guiltily as she reached for it. She should just ignore it. It was her lunch break, her only quiet time in an otherwise insane day. But Scully somehow never listened to that reasonable voice inside her head and she grabbed the receiver, placing it up to her ear.

"Agent Scully," she murmured, looking sadly at her fresh salad and stale bagel as her stomach rumbled in loud complaint.

"Scully?" She should have known it was Mulder. He had an uncanny timing, some preternatural way of sensing when she was in the middle of something and choosing that most inconvenient time to call her.

"Mulder, what's up?" She tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear, and ignoring politeness tucked into her salad despite him. The loud protestations from her stomach were silenced as she chewed happily.

"I'm behaving myself. I'm calling you."

Scully blinked in momentary confusion as she tried to process what that statement meant. "You're out of town?"

"Yep." Mulder's cell phone crackled with static.

"Where are you?"

"Pennsylvania, murder case. Seems people have been, for lack of a better term, going 'postal' around here." Mulder's tone was dry, but she suspected he wasn't trying to be funny. "Locals called the FBI in because of seeming random events of perfectly normal, rational citizens starting to let loose and kill people for no apparent reason."

"Strange." Scully chewed, spearing another forkful and hoping she didn't drip dressing all over herself. "And Skinner assigned you to the case?"

"Remember, no one else has my MO when it comes to 'weird ass shit'."

This was true, she reasoned. "You think this case is an X-file?" It had to be for Mulder to be this up beat, else she'd be dealing with another one of his petulant rants right now.

"Maybe not an X-file, but it's certainly got the locals spooked. Listen, if I sent you over some samples, you think you can run the tests for me?"

"What kind of samples?"

"Basic tox screens, blood work."

"You know Mulder, I'm a pathologist, not a lab monkey. We have a whole set up for that just down the hall." She grumbled around another mouthful of leaves, nettled that Mulder assumed that she was his go-to scientist.

"That's fine, but I want you to handle those lab results for me."

She sighed and looked at her schedule book lying wide open on her desk. Classes all afternoon. And there were the latest batches of tests to grade. The giant stack of them lay on the top of her desk, a leaning tower of handwritten papers. "Mulder, I do have a lot of my own work I need to get to." She knew it sounded like whining and she couldn't help it.

You were the one who promised to help him with his work, a voice in her head reminded her pointedly. Damn her Catholic guilt.

"Look, Scully, I get it if you're busy," Mulder had that knack of sounding like a forlorn five-year-old any time she was about to deny him something like this. "I just know you wanted to be included in my work, and thought…"

"Mulder just send me the damn test samples." She sighed, stabbing viciously at her salad, perhaps more then necessary as her plastic container nearly flew off her desk an into her lap. She caught it as she rolled her eyes in irritation. "Besides, I have paper's to grade tonight. I'll sit here and wait for the results to come in."

"You know I owe you one, Scully," Mulder murmured gratefully.

"Yeah, wait till you see my credit card statement, you owe me a lot."

He laughed. "Fine. Thanks for all of the hard work."

"Don't mention it," she mumbled grumpily, finding that as ravenous as she had been before he called, suddenly she wasn't very hungry anymore. "I'll try to have the results to you tomorrow."

"Thanks," Mulder replied. "Oh, and one more thing."

"Don't you run out of favors eventually?" 

"I'd not ask, except that I'm out of town, and…" he began.

"Feed your fish," she sighed. "Right. I'll see if I can run over there and get them something to eat."

"What would I do without you, Scully?"

"I don't see how you functioned before me, Mulder," She shot back tartly.

"Neither do I."


	14. For No One Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully agrees to work overtime.

It was the universes way, Scully realized, of irritating the hell out of her. Her arms full of files, her cell phone began ringing even before she got out of her parking area and into the main labs the FBI used at the large, sprawling Marine Base known as Quantico. She knew without even looking at the caller ID who exactly it was.

"What's up, Mulder?" She tried to sound as neutral as possible as she fumbled files, door, and phone, and not sound egregiously angry with him.

"I want to start out by saying I swear I didn't try to kill myself, no matter what it might look like."

Scully paused long enough to digest that sentence. "Look like, Mulder? Are you all right?"

Yeah, but I may have a very dashing scar that I'll have to explain to my grandkids someday. Perhaps I'll tell them it's a wound from the war."

"What happened?" Scully finally composed herself enough again to fully open the door and enter the building, flashing her badge at security as she went.

"Questioning a suspect this morning. She turned on me with a kitchen knife, cut me pretty good." Before Scully could even ask, he continued. "Yes I went to the hospital, fifteen stitches and a nice dressing, I'll be fine."

"A kitchen knife? Jesus, Mulder, what did you do?"

"Nothing that I can tell, but Sheriff Spencer shot and killed the suspect." His tone was grim and sad. "She was a wife and mother, Scully. It didn't need to come to that. Not in her own home at least."

Scully gasped, horrified at the very idea. It was never easy firing on anyone, especially suspects. And it certainly meant that Mulder couldn't speak to the poor woman to try and further his already stymied profile on what was going on in the case. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mulder."

"So am I. Listen, I've already spoken to the local medical examiner and then I'll talk to the victim's husband. I want to ship you the body."

She glanced down at her stack of files, inwardly sighing, but already mentally agreeing. "What am I looking for?" Mulder's profile had yet to come up with a link between all of the victims, a common cause that could point them in the direction of the external agent acting upon them.

"The victim from the elevator the other day, he shot up the eclectic panel by the door. Mrs. Roberts, the victim from today, she savaged the electronic read-out on her car, then a computerized, diagnostic machine used by her mechanic. I think there is some sort of connection?"

"To electronic devices?" Scully frowned as she considered this. "Perhaps some sort of signal being emitted, an electronic pulse. Some people have been shown to be more sensitive than others to such things, causing epileptic like seizures."

"None of which led them to rampaging murder," Mulder replied. "It could be anything, Scully, perhaps a signal, perhaps something they are ingesting or inhaling that no one knows anything about." He sounded so confounded by the case. It was rare that Mulder ever lacked the insight into what might be happening. Even over the phone she could feel his vexation.

"Look, ship the body down to me today. I'll stay late and take a look at it tonight."

"Scully, you don't have to put yourself out for me. Look, I know you've been going above and beyond for me already." She knew he wasn't just referring to the tox screens he had sent her, nor the trip up to New Jersey, but to everything, fom her hand in his work to her mad flight to Puerto Rico.

"Like you said yesterday, Mulder, I'm the one who wanted to help you with your work. I wouldn't stick my neck out for anyone else." She stopped at her office door, staring at it blankly as she wondered how she would hope to fumble for her keys and still hold her files an the phone at the same time.

"Still, I don't think I say thank you enough."

Was this one of those near-death, maudlin experiences Scully always heard about? "Mrs. Robert's death really shook you up, didn't it?"

"I guess," Mulder admitted reluctantly. "Spencer shot her as she was sitting on top of me. I don't think the blood will ever get out of my suit." There was a distance in his voice, as if he was trying to view what had to be a terrifying scene from outside of his own body. "These are just ordinary people, Scully. And I want to know why it is they are snapping like this. It makes no sense."

It didn't make any sense, not even to Mulder of all people. And that was what frightened him the most. "I'll do the autopsy personally, Mulder. We'll get to the bottom of this, I promise."

"We?" She could hear the speculative look, the raised eyebrows.

"You're the one who drug me into this, Mulder, that makes it a 'we' thing." She finally gave up and decided to set down the files on the floor and pull her trench coat over enough so she could root in her right pocket with her left hand for her keys.

"I thought you were coming willingly," he hedged, a note of insecurity there despite his teasing laugh.

"Mostly because you are hopeless without me." She smiled triumphantly as she pulled her keys out.

"That's probably true."

"Listen, Mulder, I have to go. I'll keep an eye out for the body. Keep that arm resting for the rest of the day, preferably in a sling, and try not to get the stitches wet…."

"Thanks, Doc." He snorted. "I'll talk to you later."

"Bye." She clicked off just as her office door swung open. She gazed inside the darkness and then down at the stack at her feet.

"He has perfect timing, doesn't he?" She sighed in amused exasperation.


	15. Theories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder catches Scully in her pajamas.

It was so unusual for Scully to get a knock on her front door on a Wednesday evening, she started at the sound, wondering for a moment if she had lost track of the fact that her sister Melissa was supposed to come by that evening or if she had ordered pizza and had forgotten about it. Frowning, she set down her television remote and padded over to the sound of a second knock and looked through the peephole out into the hallway. She hadn't expected to see Fox Mulder standing there nonchalantly, with the sort of deep frown that meant his head space was anywhere but standing in front of Dana Scully's door. She undid the chain to her front door and opened it quizzically.

"Mulder, what are you doing here?"

"That substance you said was on both bodies," he began without a greeting, leaning against the doorway of her apartment. "You said it was a substance similar to LSD?"

"Yes," she frowned, glancing down the hallway and back at Mulder. "Would you like to come in?"

He looked as if the thought hadn't occurred to him and seeing him in this state, Scully could bet it probably hadn't. "Sure," he nodded firmly. "But I can't stay for long. I need to get back up to Franklin."

"What's this all about?" She moved to allow him into her apartment, realizing as she did so that she was in her pajamas, her nice, soft, flannel ones, the kind she only let family members and occasionally the pizza man see. Her face flushed as she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shrug off the self-consciousness as Mulder paced into her living room, seating himself immediately on one of her couches, clearly unperturbed by her state of dress. Frankly, why should he be, she chided herself. The man has practically seen her naked at least once, seeing her dressed like a gunny sack would hardly cause him to bat an eye.

"I've just been to see the Gunmen," he continued as she settled in a chair beside him. "The orchards near Franklin have had a problem with cluster flies. They've been irradiating them to try to control the populations."

"Yeah, so?" Scully had heard of such projects being performed in other areas to help control their pest infestations. "Agriculture is big business in this country. It's rare now at days you don't find a farmer who isn't using some sort of chemical or radiation to protect their crops."

"But what if the government knows it might have side effects. Side effects that could cause the reactions we saw out of those people?"

The all too familiar, Mulder "conspiracy" angle. Scully had wondered when it would pop up in the conversation. "Mulder, the Federal Food and Drug Administration approve every pesticide that ever goes to market, extensively so. Nothing is ever allowed that could possibly have a negative effect on the populace."

"What if they were trying to test it," Mulder pushed back. "What if it hasn't been released to the market yet because they suspect the very symptoms that are appearing in Franklin right now. Franklin is the test case for them."

She had missed this sort of debate between them, more than she let on, but she wasn't about to run away with this theory. Especially not after what his theory was implying about another government agency that would not take kindly at being pushed around by the FBI. "Mulder, the amount of secrecy needed to pull of something like this would be astounding. Between the company that creates the pesticide and the FDA, someone would know the truth, someone would be running to the Justice Department to blow the whistle on this."

"Not if it means big profits they wouldn't. Look at big tobacco. How long did they cover the truth up on that?"

He had a point. "All right, let's just say then that there is secret testing going on in Franklin, Pennsylvania, don't you think that someone in the community there would catch on? Obviously if its effecting people there, the first place people would start looking is towards the crops. Why wouldn't anyone have caught on yet?"

"Maybe because no one knows about it. Maybe because they are being led to believe one thing while something else is going on." Mulder rose. "I'm heading back up there. I want to see how that insecticide is getting on those trees."

"Spraying I would assume." Scully frowned.

"Except that the flies in Franklin are all irradiated, to try and reduce their population without the need of chemicals. Why would you find traces of a chemical pesticide in these bodies if it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place."

There, she admitted, he had her stumped. "I don't know, Mulder."

"I need to find out,." He had that determined pace, that look he had whenever he thought he had a break on a case.

"Just be careful out there," she called, rising to follow him to the door. "Don't piss off unsuspecting farmers or the local officials with wild accusations."

"Would I do something like that?" He asked, turning back to her as he opened the door to let himself out.

"Yes. You've done it before."

"Oh ye of little faith, Scully." He paused, staring down at her with a slight frown, as if just now noticing her. Or perhaps, to be more succinct, he just had noticed what she was wearing. "I'm sorry, did I come at a bad time?"

Scully's cheeks immediately reddened. "No, I had just been getting ready for bed," she admitted, plucking nervously at her flannel top. "But it's all right."

"You sure?" He glanced at his watch. "Damn, I need to get going. I'll fill you in tomorrow." He turned swiftly, taking two steps out of the door before spinning back on his heels.

"One more thing." He bit his lip nervously as he suddenly became particularly apologetic. "I did something that perhaps you are going to hate me for."

"Something?" She paused, staring at him in worry. "What?"

"I had to get some equipment from The Lone Gunmen for tonight."

"Yes?" Scully had a sad, sinking feeling she knew where this was going.

"I may have given Frohike your number," Mulder mumbled in a rush, looking extremely guilty as he shrugged his shoulders up to his ears.

"You gave who, what?" Her voice rose sharply, echoing in the deserted hallway as Mulder winced visibly. She lowered her tone a slight decibel as her eyes cut daggers in Mulder's direction. "I thought we agreed…"

"I gave him your work number," Mulder insisted. "That way you could always have the switchboard block him if he got truly annoying."

"Mulder, I don't need your creepy friends calling me, panting over the phone."

"Frohike isn't that creepy."

She only stared at him in mute anger.

"Perhaps he is a little creepy, but he's well meaning."

"I swear to God, Mulder, if he calls and breathes heavy over the phone, I'll have the Bureau trace his phone calls so fast…."

"Wouldn't work, not with the set up they've got." Mulder smiled cheerfully. "Come on, Scully, I doubt he'll even call. Guy has too big of a crush on you."

"That is supposed to make me feel better?"

"It's all for the case, Scully!"

"It's all for your case, Mulder."

"I'll make it up to you."

"The rate you're going, it will take a month of Sundays for you to make it up to me."

"You'll see," he grinned. "Got to get going."

"Swear to God, Mulder."

His laughter rang down the hallway as he turned to leave.


	16. Scientific Method

Edward Funsch didn't even stir in the straps that held him to his bed. Completely lax in sleep, the sedative had finally made the hyper-excited man fall into a hard slumber. Scully stirring beside him didn't even wake him. She checked his vitals on the machine beside his bed, making the notes in the charts she had borrowed from his doctors. The silence of the room was interrupted by Mulder's gentle knock on the door. He peeked his head inside, glancing at Funsch, before beckoning her out into the hallway.

"How's he doing," he asked, glancing to the bed where Funsch lay, as still as death. Across the hall from Funsch's room, a Franklin County Sheriffs Deputy scowled into the door, glaring at Funsch's prone figure darkly.

"He's out, for now." Scully glanced sideways pointedly at the deputy, before pulling Mulder further down the hallway beside her. She held up Funsch's charts for him. "Blood tests did indicate high levels of LSDM. He was so wound up when they brought him in, they had to pump him full of sedatives just to calm him down." She frowned towards Funsch's door. "I don't think he'll remember a bit of what happened, Mulder. Not about the blood, not about the killing and even if he does, it will be in some hazy fog of a bad, acid trip. Paranoia aside, it won't seem real to him."

"Spencer is talking to the DA already," Mulder sighed, glancing at the files and passing them back to Scully. "People will want answers, but Funsch can't be held responsible for his actions. Winters is adamant about not letting anyone know about this being linked to LSDM," Mulder's jaw clenched in frustration. "He wants to hide the truth because he's afraid of what the public will say if word got out about it."

"And he's right, Mulder." Scully hated saying it, but in a way the mayor of Franklin had a point.

"What are you suggesting, Scully? That we cover this up?" He stared at her in surprised outrage. It was an answer he obviously wasn't expecting out of Scully. Frankly, it was an answer she didn't like giving, but with Mulder's usual aplomb, he was diving into the deep end without checking what was at the bottom first.

"I'm not suggesting that we cover it up. But I am suggesting we discuss it with Skinner before you go making recommendations to the DA about how to proceed. This isn't just about small town justice, Mulder. This has implications right up to the federal level. and you don't have a lot of popular friends up there right now."

"So, what do we need?" Mulder charged ahead, waving off her reminders, nodding towards the medical file in her hand. "You have your evidence, what you gained from the autopsies, from Funsch. That's enough to start."

"Mulder, even with this, we have no conclusive evidence it is the spraying. We haven't been able to test the chemical that they've been using, nor the fruit they've been spraying it on. And while you have information of secret pesticide sprays over the orchards outside of town, who's to say that it's that spray that's causing the LSDM build up?"

"Didn't cause the LSDM build up?" Mulder's jaw hung wide, his expression flashing dangerously. "Scully, have you just not been listening to anything I've said over the last few days?

"I've heard every word, Mulder, but you have to listen to me now." She met his irritation with a testiness all of her own. "You are basing your entire hypothesis on the fact you supposedly saw two helicopters spraying the fields just outside of town and your theories on subliminal messaging. First of all we have no evidence as to who it is spraying those fields, what their pesticide is and what sort of tests have been run on it previous to this."

"This is their test, Scully! They are testing it on the people of Franklin right now!" He was practically yelling, causing the deputy to stare at them both warily. "Franklin is their experiment."

"Beyond that being the height of irresponsibility on the part of the government, for what purpose, Mulder? The scandal this will cause alone will be bad enough. Then there will be the lawsuits from all of the families affected. It will look bad for the city, and it will look bad for the FDA."

He looked ready to mutiny. "Fine, we have no proof that they are running experiments. But we have the blood tests, Scully, the people who lived close to the spray sights. You have your autopsy reports, Funsch's blood work. That's enough to show that whatever it is out there in the field is what is causing this."

"Not conclusively, Mulder. All we have is that there happens to be a connection to proximity to the fields and high instances of this chemical in the blood stream. We don't even know for sure what the cause of this chemical is. I'm not saying you are wrong, Mulder, but I am saying we can't start flinging accusations against our own government and the leaders of Franklin without more evidence than this."

It was the fundamental argument between herself and Mulder, the crux of the difference between them; his need to expose the truth and her need for hard evidence to support the theories. It always came down to this, his leaps in reasoning and logic stringing together the random facts like pearls, while her scientific reasoning tried to bridge the gaps in between, forcing him to slow down, to back up in his methodology. He hated it, the way it tied him down and fettered him to earth. But she knew that his lack of such reasoning had trapped him once before. It was why she had even been assigned to be his partner in the first place, had been what had closed down the X-files. Mulder looked as if he wanted to rage against her, frustration burning blackly in his expression. She knew what he was thinking, that he had this case, they had the evidence and Scully was obtusely insisting that it wasn't enough, that it would never be enough. Try as Mulder might, he never seemed to have the pieces in just enough quantity and just the right order to have it all together.

"The best we can do, Mulder, is share our suspicions with Skinner and hope that he is able to share our findings with the FDA. But we can't use it as conclusive evidence."

"They'll just cover it up, Scully, bury it before it becomes an issue and an embarrassment." He ran his left hand restlessly through his dark hair, causing it to stand on end. She noticed on the edge of his palm the dark stain of red running from under his suit coat.

"Mulder, you're bleeding." All thoughts of the case and Mulder's irritation fled as she pulled at his hand, studying it for only a moment before tucking Funsch's file under her arm. Mulder tried to take the opportunity to pull his arm back, irritably, from her grasp.

"I'm fine, Scully. It's just the cut from the other day." He waved her off as she made another grab and tried to pull his arm back.

"I'll be the judge of that. You probably broke your stitches." This time she pulled enough to cause him to yelp, wincing in pain. Her pointed look forced him to relent, as she carefully pushed up the coat sleeve and unbuttoned the cuff of his white dress shirt, now turned crimson in one long, streaky patch, stained with blood that was slowly drying to a rust colored red.

"I thought as much," she murmured, as she folded back the cotton and studied the bloody gauze. "I'll bet anything you need new stitches. What did you do?"

"Fell on the stairs going up the clock tower." He was more perturbed that she was now fussing over him so soon after shooting down his plans on going public with the events in Franklin.

Scully felt her mouth quirk tightly in a sympathetic grimace. "Get over to the ER, then, have them re-stitch that for you." She gently peeled away the bandage enough to see the deep and nasty cut across the radius of his left arm, half of it still held tightly by the black stitches, the other half gaping open with fresh blood slowly oozing out of it. "You're right, you'll likely end up with a nasty scar from that one."

"Match the other ones I have." Mulder shrugged, his anger still not abated. She had a feeling that it would only simmer into a slow sulk rather than an outright explosion for now.

"Go get it stitched up then." She gingerly placed the bandage back on, just enough to keep the wound from being any further exposed. "And I'll finish up with Funsch's doctors, okay?"

It was as much of a truce as they were likely to have between them on this topic for now. Reluctantly Mulder nodded, glaring at his arm, but unable to do anything other than what she asked of him. "You'll help me file a report to Skinner on this case?"

"I will," she assured him. "I'll explain the theories behind the LSDM. But I can't corroborate that it's necessarily causing the delusions, Mulder, that it's affecting them subliminally. I just don't have that sort of information, not without testing I don't. But I can confirm it is in these people's systems, that there is a possibility it may be effecting them on a neurological level, and maybe…maybe that will do something." She sighed helplessly. It had to do something. People were dead in Franklin because of some reason and Scully couldn't make herself completely believe that LSDM had little to do with it.

"I guess that's as good as I'm going to get," Mulder replied tonelessly. He wasn't happy with this, but what else could he do? Wordlessly he turned from her, his right hand holding his left wrist gingerly as he moved towards the sign that read "emergency room" down the hall. She watched him till he turned the corner silently wishing that life would just work without the scientific method, the need for empirical evidence. It would certainly make her life and Mulder's life considerably easier.


	17. Breather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully gets an unexpected phone call.

She didn't bother looking up from her work computer as she picked up the receiver to her phone and continued to type.

"Skinner seemed to be pleased with my report." Mulder hardly ever started with a preamble beyond, "Scully, it's me." Today, he didn't even start with that. His agitation was still apparent beneath the surface. He had not been happy with the lack of firm conclusion drawn up behind the findings Scully was able to present. "I don't get it, it's not even as fully detailed as most of my X-file reports were and yet he thought it was some of the best work we ever did together."

Scully wondered how to put this diplomatically without saying, "I told you so."

"This time, Mulder, you started from the science as it was presented and worked from there, rather than the other way around. It didn't come to any hard and fast conclusions, but it is at least something the FBI can now take to the Food and Drug Administration and make them aware."

"Do you believe they will actually do that?" Mulder, as usual, was skeptical about any good intentions on the part of the government.

"I believe, Mulder, that it's out of our hands whether they do or don't. We've at least brought it to light. And I doubt that the people of Franklin, Pennsylvania will forget about it anytime soon. Maybe this will help them push their government for less detrimental forms of pest eradication. Maybe they'll go organic."

Her statement actually elicited the first snort of true amusement she had heard out of Mulder in days. "You only hope that so you can continue your push your agenda of dubious, healthy eating on the rest of us."

"I'll remember that when you develop cancer from some hot dog you ate, you know this." She paused in her typing, smiling into the receiver. Mulder's temper had been in full force in the days since Edward Funsch's attack on the students at Franklin Community College. She feared he would be angry with her forever for forcing him to start from her vantage point in his report, not from his.

"I seriously hope that when it's my time, it's not because of a hot dog. Maybe a heart attack, old age, a beautiful brunette, but not a sausage."

"Stranger things have happened," she chuckled. "I'm glad Skinner was happy with the report."

"I guess." Mulder was evasive. "He at least hasn't planned on putting my ass back on surveillance duty. I think he was afraid I'd strangle someone with a length of tape."

"I wouldn't put it past you. What will you be assigned to next?"

"No clue. It's back to the bullpen for me, till they find another shit job to fling at me."

"It won't be that bad," she tried to reassure him. He didn't sound particularly confident.

"I better go," Mulder murmured. "I'll talk to you later."

"Bye." The phone clicked before the single syllable could get fully out of her throat. She sighed, shaking her head as she replaced her phone. Mulder in his moodiness could be a raging asshole at the best of times. Certainly this case had done nothing to improve the dour mood he'd had ever since he had been removed from the X-files. Returning to her work, she had only managed a few words in the report she was writing when her phone rang again, rudely breaking her train of thought as she snapped up the receiver again, irritated.

"Did you hang up on yourself, Mulder?" She assumed of course he had called back, intending to apologize for cutting her off. She waited for a reply, but instead was met with the static hum of silence on the other end.

"Mulder?" She frowned at the lack of response. "Mulder, we aren't playing this game again. Your phone isn't sending you subliminal messages."

No response. Nothing. Scully glanced at the digital read out at the top of her phone, trying to see if it was some sort of internal, switchboard glitch. It was an outside line, though, but no number was registered. She frowned. The FBI had ways of tracing every number that came into their offices. It was rare that any number was untraceable, unless someone went to great lengths to make their number hidden from the computer systems of the FBI, someone who knew a bit about computers themselves.

"Frohike," Scully murmured, her voice rising in pitch as she turned from her computer. "Frohike, God damn it, if this is you, I swear to God…."

There was a clattering, snapping sound at the other end and the faint noise of someone swearing. In the distance she could hear laughter, perhaps the skinny blonde, Langley was it? He was loudly crowing something about "I told you so, man, she's FBI, and she's not that much of an idiot."

"Shut it, dip weed." It was indeed Frohike on the other end of the line, the strange little man clearing his throat loudly and trying to sound for the entire world as if he were simply making a nonchalant call to another friend. "Agent Scully, I'm sorry to have disturbed you this fine evening. Is everything all right?"

"Besides being stalked by a computer hacker with nothing better to do in his life?" She wanted to beat the hell out of him frankly, interrupting her in the middle of her thought. Then she'd beat the hell out of Mulder for giving him her number in the first place.

"I'm sorry, if now's not a good time," he instantly replied, falling all over himself to apologize nervously. If she admitted it to herself, he also sounded just faintly hurt; she had shut him down without even the grace of polite conversation.

Damn it! She rolled her eyes. She couldn't just be pissy about this. They were Mulder's friends and weird or not, they were also valuable contacts for him and the work she was helping him with. "No," she said slowly, kicking herself even as she said it. "No, I've just been busy this evening writing a report."

"The autopsy business keeping you hopping?" Not exactly the most elegant way to put that question.

"More or less," she evaded. "How can I help you Frohike?"

"Melvin."

"Excuse me?"

"Melvin, that's my first name. You can call me Melvin if you want."

She wondered if Mulder ever called him Melvin. She highly doubted it. "How about we stick to Frohike. After all, I prefer Scully." There, she thought, at least she had set the parameters of their relationship, professional and on a last name basis only.

"Right…Scully." He sounded for too chipper. She pinched the bridge of her nose between two forefingers, hoping to massage away the headache she knew was coming on.

"Was there a reason you called?" Other than having a hopeless crush on her, she reasoned. It wasn't as if Frohike had been coy about it. He'd blatantly called her "hot" the first time she had met him.

"Errr…no." He coughed nervously and she could imagine him tugging hesitantly at his collar and looking to the supremely entertained Langley for assistance. "I just wanted to, you know, get to know you better."

"Really," she snorted softly. "It was my understanding that you already knew all about me."

"Meaning?" Frohike sounded vaguely alarmed.

"Well, the first day I met Mulder he already had my senior thesis from Maryland on hand. Curious how he got a hold of that, isn't it?"

"Well..." Frohike only sounded mildly abashed. "It wasn't exactly hard. You realize that the University of Maryland has it published in their library, along with all the top level honors thesis papers."

"I know. But it's strange you found that." She leaned back in her office chair. "What else do you happen to know about me, Frohike?"

"Well, nothing too strange," he admitted slowly. "You're middle name is Katherine, born in Norfolk, Virginia, raised in San Diego and Baltimore, your father was in the Navy, and your mother was a housewife."

"Not bad, but rather easy to find in a few minutes worth of digging in your resources," she teased. She was baiting him, she knew it, but there was something disturbing and yet funny about the way these three strange malcontents could just dig up information out of the blue, the literary _deus ex machina_ brought to real life.

"I've got better than that." Frohike sounded affronted she would even consider that his skills were so minimal. On the other end she could hear the clicking of keyboard keys and a computer beeping. She imagined file after file opening on his monitor, all with information on her. The idea was frankly terrifying and she felt her skin creep slightly as she wondered just what sort of things Frohike had dug up on her. "Let's see, you never got below an A- your entire way through school, never so much as even a detention." He seemed less than impressed by that fact. "And you were on the track and field team in high school, a sprinter." He paused briefly. "Nice outfit. Who'd of thought someone your height would have such long legs."

"I think this conversation is over," she sighed, now very much disturbed he had found some random photograph of her from fifteen years before in the small shorts and top that all track and field kids wore back in the day.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, that was bad of me," Frohike apologized quickly. "It's just that…well, I don't get a chance to talk to such a lovely woman that often."

Despite herself, she felt warmed by the compliment. Somehow despite the weird factor, Frohike made it sound oddly endearing. "All right then. But you have to promise me you'll delete that photo."

"Promise," Frohike replied promptly.

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Agent Scully, have I ever given you a reason to doubt my honor?" He truly sounded affronted.

"No," she admitted. "But I don't want to have a reason either."

"Fine." He relented, and she could hear a distant beeping noise. "It's gone."

"And any other copies as well?"

"Yes," he snapped, dejected.

"Thank you, Frohike."

He mumbled "you're welcome," but didn't sound thrilled with the idea.

"See, Frohike, we are developing a friendship already. You willingly did something I asked you to do as a favor, even though you didn't want to."

"Is that what you call friendship? How successful are you at getting Mulder to go along with that sort of thinking?"

"Surprisingly well, considering Mulder."

"Damn, woman." Frohike whistled low, clearly impressed. "What sort of magic hold do you have over him?"

"Nothing but respect," she answered honestly. It was the one thing that Fox Mulder craved more than anything, she had realized quickly, except for maybe the truth concerning his sister.

"If I didn't know Mulder better, I'd say it was more than just respect you've been using on him." She should have been insulted by the insinuation, but decided to ignore it, remembering the speaker. "He's a mighty lucky man to have you around as a partner, Agent Scully."

"Well, not anymore," she reminded him. "Remember they separated us."

"Yeah, how is that working out for the FBI? Heard you helped him up in Pennsylvania."

"Let's call it one friend assisting another."

"Okay, so Mulder's damn lucky he's got a friend like you." Frohike sounded wistful. "Man would be an idiot to lose it."

Despite the fact that it came from Melvin Frohike, quite possibly the strangest, most lecherous fellow she had seen since some of her father's naval friends, Scully felt herself positively melt at the compliment. It was honest, it was heartfelt, and it was sincere, the sort of praise she hadn't received from someone in far too long a time. "Thank you, Frohike. That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long, long time."

"Really?" His voice cracked in surprise, as he cleared his throat hurriedly. "Really?"

"Yeah." She hated to admit it, but it was. "And it certainly made my day."

"Well!" He hemmed self-consciously. "I'm glad I did something right."

In the background, Scully could hear Langley loudly retort. "Don't let it get to your head, you'll say something retarded in a minute."

"Shut up, hippy," Frohike snapped angrily. "I'm sorry for my friend, here, he's uncouth in the ways of _amore_."

"Oh shut it. When was the last time you got laid. And that woman in the chat room last week, if she really was a woman, doesn't count."

"Listen," Frohike began as Scully cleared her throat.

"Hey, Frohike, I'm glad you called, but I do have a report to finish up tonight if I want to get home."

"Oh…right." Frohike seemed to just then remember he was on the phone with someone else. "You want to finish that up."

"Yeah." She smiled, despite the interruption feeling somewhat glad that Frohike had called just to chat. "Thank you for calling, though."

"Anytime, Agent Scully." He replied in a tone she thought he assumed was smooth. "If you need my help or assistance of course give me a call."

"What sort of help could you give her," Langley needled happily on the other end.

"Swear to God, Langley, if you don't shut it…"

"Good night, boys." Scully laughed as she hung up the phone to the sound of their squabbling in the background.


	18. A Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully takes an early morning call from Mulder

It was getting to the point that Scully didn't need to wonder who it was that was calling her at odd hours of the day. She simply picked up the receiver and answered. "What can I do for you, Mulder?"

"Have you read this mornings _New York Times_?"

"Mulder, I'm barely awake." She blinked her tired eyes at the clock on her coffee maker, counting down the seconds till the pot was done brewing. She rubbed her hair with a towel, still wet from the shower.

"But it's seven AM," Mulder replied, apparently uncomprehending that someone might still just be waking up at such an ungodly hour.

"I've yet to have my coffee," she muttered as the timer went off and she pulled the pot off the burner to fill the mug waiting in front of her.

"I'll be brief then," Mulder knew all to well now that Scully didn't function till she at least had her first cup of coffee in, and often her second, before she got to the office. The long years of medical school and residency in her youth had not only inured her to long hours, it had helped her build a tolerance to caffeine that often forced her to imbibe multiple cups to get all cylinders firing first thing.

"What is it?" She didn't want to point out to Mulder she didn't get the _New York Times_ delivered to her house, rather she got the _Washington Post_ , but it seemed a moot point as he carried on anyway.

"Ever hear of a Dr. Saul Grissom?"

"Sounds vaguely familiar." At this time in the morning any name he threw at her would sound familiar. "What's he specialize in?"

"Sleep. He was a neurologist working in New York, had a clinic up there."

"Okay." Scully yawned again, shuffling from her kitchen to her living room, where she slumped onto the couch, coffee in hand. She curled up bare feet under her robe and dug her toes in between the couch cushions to keep them warm as she spoke. "Why is this important again?"

"Dr. Grissom was found murdered in his New York apartment last night?"

"Okay." She still didn't follow. Perhaps she should brew a stronger batch next time Mulder called her first thing in the morning.

He was patient at least. "According to the article, a 911 call was placed at 11:23 last night from Dr. Grissom, claiming his apartment was on fire. Yet, five minutes later, when the fire department broke into Grissom's apartment, there was no fire, no smoke. Grissom was found dead in his home, all the signs pointing to smoke inhalation."

Scully glanced down at her coffee again, sniffed it, and then frowned. "I think I need to get a different ground next time," she mumbled, more to herself than to Mulder.

"What?" 

"Nothing." She shook her head, phone to her ear. "Mulder, you realize that a person can't necessarily die of smoke inhalation without smoke, right?"

"They can die of lack of oxygen, correct?"

"Well if there was an agent causing the lack of oxygen to the brain, be it smoke, strangulation, a liquid."

"That doesn't explain why Grissom thought his apartment was on fire. He placed a 911 call saying as much."

"I don't know, Mulder. Did they check for drugs in his system?"

"I haven't see the autopsy report, yet. I'm going to call the NYPD later to see what I can get."

"You're seriously considering this case?" It dawned on Scully, finally, as to why he was calling her. "You are going to walk into Skinner's office with nothing more than an article about a strange death in New York?"

"It's an X-file, Scully. You know it and I know it."

"They closed the X-files, Mulder. If you go in to Skinner with this, he'll slam you back on surveillance duty faster than you can say strip club."

"He's already got me doing it, transcribing tape." Mulder was petulant. "Someone slipped this paper under my door this morning, Scully. They wanted me to find it."

"Someone?" She sighed, realizing they were back to this all too familiar game. "Mulder, the last time you took advice from a mysterious stranger it nearly got you killed, and it certainly got him killed. Do you want to allow yourself to be puppeted around again for someone's agenda?"

"It's imperative that the X-files become reopened. This person said that over the phone. Why would they pass off this sort of information to me if they didn't want me to work to get it opened again, to prove to Skinner the legitimacy of this sort of work."

"You aren't going to prove anything to Skinner with a paper clipping and a rumor, Mulder. He won't let you play that game anymore. You need to get something more concrete than that before going to him with this." They had just had this very same discussion the week before. She wondered if this was going to be the common refrain she sang to him from now on. "You can't get away with half-assed theories any more Mulder, you know that."

"I know," he snapped, sighing heavily. "Believe me, I'm calling NYPD next to get a run down of the case and I'm demanding an autopsy report. I'll take those to Skinner and try to make a case. I want to know what Grissom was up to that would make someone want to kill him."

"That is if someone tried to kill him, Mulder." The coffee finally greasing the rusty gears of her brain. "You are assuming that he was murdered based on supposition."

"He claimed his apartment was on fire, Scully, and that he was found dead moments later in a completely undamaged apartment. What else could have happened?"

"I don't know," she grumbled irritably. "Perhaps he had an undiagnosed condition? Perhaps an accidental overdose?"

"He was a doctor, Scully. Do you ever accidentally overdose on anything?"

"It's been known to happen, especially with doctors who have drug problems. And you said he was a sleep doctor, Mulder. It's hard to say what he was involved in, what his work was. You won't know any more till you get a hold of that autopsy report, which the NYPD is going to be loath to hand over to you just because you read an article in the paper." The New York police were well known to particularly be touchy when the FBI stepped in, understandable when you recognized the long history of organized and white-collar crime in New York. She doubted they would simply roll over on a simple case and give Mulder what he wanted without a fight.

He knew that too. "I might have to talk Skinner into this one. Dealing with the locals there is like trying to shove a hot poker up my ass. They won't give me anything unless I get it authorized, and I can't do that until I have more to give Skinner."

It was a quandary. But someone wanted Mulder to figure it out. Scully wondered briefly who his secret ally was in the Bureau and why they were fighting so hard to get the X-files reopened. Was it to find the truth? Or was I for someone's agenda.

"Just be careful, Mulder." She yawned again, downing the last of her coffee and wondering if she could perhaps manage another cup full while she dressed and readied herself for the day. "And as much as I would love to sit and bat issues back and forth with you like old times, I have my own job to get to in Quantico. Class starts at 9 AM."

"Yeah." Mulder usually would insert some snotty joke about students and teachers after a proclamation like this, but he was preoccupied with his own thoughts as he didn't even say a word. "I'll give you a call later after I've talked to Skinner, let you know what I find out."

"Okay," she murmured, rising from the couch. "Though it amazes me that neither of us has been called on the carpet yet for so blatantly working together despite our reassignments."

"Why not?" He sounded truly confused. "Lots of former partner's work together even after they've moved on to different departments. No one frowns on that."

"I suppose." She shrugged as she held the phone to one ear and poured more coffee into her mug with the other. "Fill me in after you've talked to Skinner, all right?"

"Sure." He paused. "Thanks, Scully."

"For what?"

"Keeping me grounded and kicking my ass."

She smiled softly as she placed the pot back into the coffee maker.

"That's what they brought me in to do, Mulder. I'm just sorry it took them closing the X-files before you started listening to me."

"Me too." He sighed ruefully. "I'll talk to you later."

"Sure," she replied, clicking off the phone and drinking deeply from her cup. If she planned on continuing such early morning conversations, she mused, she really would have to switch her coffee beans. Mulder's leaps in logic were far too incomprehensible for such early morning conversation.


	19. Drop Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder asks Scully to drop everything to help him out.

"Electrocution effects electrolytic conduction, disrupting the heart beat and most of the autonomic systems." Scully paused briefly in her description as her students frantically wrote this information down, pens scratching so fast and furious they created a veritable buzz in the room. "Death actually occurs from tissue damage and necrosis in the heart itself, particularly in the sinus and the atria ventricular nodes…"

The door to the classroom opened with a squeaking sound, interrupting Scully in her train of thought and causing her to turn and stare at the intruder, eyebrows arching in cold aggravation. The young man, a summer intern who helped out in the offices upstairs, blanched slightly under the cold gaze of Agent Scully and tried to smile apologetically. "Agent Scully, sorry to interrupt, but you have a call from a George Hale? Says it's urgent."

Again with that perfect timing of his. Her mouth quirking in irritation as she turned to her class. "Excuse me," she murmured, moving to one of the phones in the classroom, and picking up the line blinking red.

"Where are you?" She could only assume Mulder was somewhere other than at his desk in Washington, else he wouldn't have interrupted a time he knew she had class.

"National Airport, catching the shuttle up to LaGuardia in half an hour." In the background she could hear the bustle of Dulles National. "How do you feel about joining me in 'The Big Apple' for an autopsy?"

Because her life completely revolved around no one and nothing else other than Fox Mulder, she silently grumbled to herself. "What's going on?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," he admitted. Typical, Mulder gone without a game plan and probably without a clue.

"I can't do it today. My last class isn't until 4:30."

"That's fine," he replied cheerfully. "I can have the ME wrap the body to go."

Great, another late night in the office. Already she could feel her feet protesting vainly against this plan. "Mulder…"

"You'll get it by five."

She heaved a sigh of exasperation, rolling her eyes, knowing it was no good. She would say yes eventually, she might as well do it now before he began to wheedle. "What's the name?"

"Grissom, Dr. Saul Grissom. You remember, I told you about him."

She couldn't believe he got the case. "Mulder, you were talking to me while I was still on my first cup of coffee."

"I know." She could almost see him laughing at her. "Sleep doctor, died in an apartment he thought was burning. I heard the 911 tape, he was pretty convinced."

"I won't know a thing till the body gets here. What's the ME in New York saying?"

"Cardiac arrest, just by the way they found the body."

"I'll take a look." The lengths she went for Mulder, she realized. How did he convince Skinner to give him the case?

He must have been reading her thoughts. "You were right on Skinner, he wasn't totally sold on this. I got the tape for him, but couldn't get the ME report, not till he signed off on it. It's kind of important you get it for me ASAP."

"Why?" Scully frowned, curious as to the rush, beyond the pressure of Mulder's first, X-file like case from Skinner since the closing of the department.

"He sort of assigned it to another agent as well," Mulder murmured in a rush.

"What?" Scully didn't realize her voice carried until several students turned to stare at her. She turned her back on them and continued more quietly. "You have a new partner?" The news hit her in the gut unexpectedly, an unpleasant feeling of disquiet and hurt shaking the practiced calm she always placed on for her classes.

"It's not like that, Scully, he's not exactly a partner. He's a kid who got himself assigned to the case before I did. He says he found out about the article himself and filed the paperwork half an hour before I did. So he's trying to tag along for the ride."

"Kid? What sort of kid would see that in the _New York Times_ and think, 'wow, I want to investigate that'?" She did nothing all day but deal with the raw recruits running through the FBI Academy. Scully could honestly say she only believed ninetyu-five percent of them were completely clueless upon entering the Bureau. "Who is this guy anyway?"

"Says his name is Krycek, I don't know, some peon from the bull pen. He's probably looking for some way to jump out of grunt work and figured hooking up with old Spooky might be his ticket."

"Does he not know the stories about you?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"I'm just saying, Mulder, who is this guy? And why would he conveniently pop up with this case when you were the one doing all of the leg work on it?"

"Do I detect jealousy there, Agent Scully?" Mulder was too damned perceptive for his own good and it annoyed the hell out of her.

"Mulder, our relationship is professional, how could I be jealous?" She wasn't about to admit she was, stuck there in the classroom explaining electrocution to a bunch of raw, wet-behind-the-ears recruits. She'd rather be in the field, investigating once again, even if it did mean doing strange autopsies for Mulder again.

"I know you miss being out in the field, Scully. Look, Krycek, he's just on this case for the thrills. Soon he'll catch on what hanging with Spooky is all about and he'll go scuttling back to the safe stuff in the hopes he can get a nice, normal FBI assignment."

"I don't know about this, Mulder," she hissed quietly, wondering if she had any breaks at all during her day to perhaps place a discreet call. She bet that Frohike would pass out in sheer, ecstatic joy if she called him up to have him do a bit of a background check.

"Look, Scully, I got to get going. I want to get up there and get this done pretty quickly. I'm going to Grissom's clinic to see what exactly was going on there and what, if anything, it might have to do with his death."

"I'll keep an eye out for the body," she replied. "I'll give you a call when I find something."

"Thanks, Scully." He clicked off the line, and Scully stared at the now quiet receiver, ignoring the soft murmuring from her students. Drop everything to do an autopsy. Never mind he had a new partner. She shouldn't be angry with this, it shouldn't bother her that some other new, clueless agent was going to chase after Mulder, follow his work, and perhaps get himself killed because he wouldn't listen, or worse yet, get Mulder killed. She slammed the phone down with perhaps a bit too much force, the plastic creaking in protesting as she returned to the class.

"I'm sorry for that," she apologized. "As I was saying, death actually occurs from tissue damage and necrosis in the heart itself, particularly in the sinus and the atria ventricular nodes. ..."


	20. Green-eyed Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully proves to be a bit jealous of Alex Krycek.

Scully didn't want to be impressed by Mulder's new partner. She wanted to dislike him intensely, to snub him as being too green, to raw, unable to handle the rigors of the work that Mulder would demand out of a partner. It didn't matter to her if it were Skinner's doing or FBI protocol, she had been assigned to Mulder first, she had put her hard work and scientific skill into getting him this far. No wet-behind-the-ears, ladder climber had willingly gone with Mulder into the wilds of the Oregon forest, chasing after strange lights. They hadn't tried to keep his life's blood from draining on a warehouse floor in North Carolina, trying to hold him together long enough for paramedics to arrive. They hadn't stood by his side when a liver-eating mutant had tried to frame him for a crime he didn't commit, or flown down to Puerto Rico in what could have been a career-ending move just to bring him home before others could get to him and destroy him. Scully had done those things. Why was it that she was forced to cut up bodies, while some snot-nosed child was hunting down clues for whoever had killed Saul Grissom? More precisely, how it was he looked as if he had died from burning on the inside, but not on the outside? She prodded Dr. Grissom's stomach in the shiny, hanging, brushed steel weight scale, frowning at the grayish organ, covered in blood, trying to piece together some semblance of a hypothesis and finding herself at a total loss. Perhaps this was why Skinner had sent this kid to work with Mulder, Scully couldn't see outside of the box enough. She sighed heavily, as behind her the doors to the lab opened in a rush of air and all-too-familiar leather-soled feet.

"Spleen or pancreas?" She could hear Mulder's ever-present sunflower seeds cracking in his teeth as he approached her work table, mildly disgusted by seeing the late Dr. Grissom cut open, his organs carefully splayed open and labeled. Mulder never had a strong constitution for dissection, but he always tried to put a brave face on it, even if he did a poor job of hiding it.

"Stomach," Scully corrected him with a smile. "I was just about to start it." Her eyes fell on the other man with Mulder. His new partner, she realized, as she studied him warily.

"This is Alex Krycek," Mulder shrugged, looking exceedingly uncomfortable. She wasn't sure if it was because he didn't trust the newbie, or because he didn't trust Scully with him. "We're, uh…working the case together."

Notice, Scully thought, that Mulder refused to say the word "partner". Something about that thawed her ever so slightly. She glanced the new recruit up and down. He certainly was everything the FBI came to expect from their agents, and to be honest he wasn't exactly hard to stare at if she admitted it. Shorter than Mulder by a hair, he was the athletic, swaggering, confident type, with the sort of all-American smile that some women seemed to want to fall over. Certainly he was attractive, from the top of his perfectly styled dark hair to the tips of his neatly polished shoes. Even his tie matched his suit, something Mulder rarely, if ever managed. His handsome face lit up with a friendly smile as Mulder introduced him. Scully might have been instantly drawn to Alex Krycek if he wasn't the one who was usurping his way into their work.

"Good to meet you," she offered numbly, as he cheerfully held his hand out.

"You too," he eagerly replied, as she walked right past his proffered fingers. It wasn't personal, she tried to reason. She had just been up to her elbows in Saul Grissom, literally, and she doubted the newbie would want a handful of someone's blood and gastric juices by way of greeting. Though, she had to admit it would be amusing to see his face if she had taken his hand.

She moved immediately to the body, laying on it's back on the table. When Dr. Grissom had arrived hours before, she had been shocked to see the man's body still stiffened in rigor mortis, until she had actually opened him up to see what was going on. "Notice the pugilistic attitude of the corpse?" 

Behind her Krycek coughed loudly. Perhaps dead bodies made the kid squeamish. She only felt slightly bad at her spike of slightly malicious amusement. "This condition generally occurs several hours after death. It's caused by a coagulation of muscle proteins when the body is exposed to extremely high temperatures." 

She knew Mulder would like that answer. As she expected, he pounced on this information immediately. "Like fire?" He frowned as he studied the upturned arms of Grissom, still trying to shield his face, even hours after death.

"This degree of limb flexion is observed exclusively in burn-related victims."

"But there was no fire," Krycek finally offered, frowning between herself and Mulder as if he was the only one who understood that obvious fact.

Look who is finally catching on Scully mentally snorted. She ignored him as she continued. "And no epidermal burns to indicate as much, but when I opened up the skull, I found external hemorrhages which can only be caused by intense heat. Somehow, this man suffered all of the secondary but none of the primary physiological signs of being in a fire."

Mulder nodded, mentally noting her words, his thoughts beginning that all-too familiar dizzying dance of his as it spun around the facts and tried to build the most likely hypothesis. "Any theories?"

"I couldn't even begin to explain what could have caused this. It's almost as if…" She paused, glancing sideways at the eager Krycek who stood watching her with puzzled disbelief.

"What," Mulder prodded, though she suspected he knew what her answer before she said it.

"It's almost as if his body believed that it was burning," she finally admitted hesitantly, shrugging as she leaned against the examination table. "I can't tell you how or why, but for whatever reason, Grissom's body believed that there was a fire in there."

"Grissom insisted on it during his 911 call." Mulder stared thoughtfully at the victim's body.

"Perhaps, for whatever reason, Grissom was able to believe it, despite all of the physical evidence." She racked her mind for possibilities to explain such a phenomenon.

"Could it be something like post-hypnotic suggestion," Krycek offered in the momentary silence, clearly wanting to offer something to the conversation. Scully frowned, stopping just sort of a glare. It was certainly a Mulder sort of solution and she could see him consider it as he weighed his options.

"I think we can perhaps find something a bit more scientific than hypnosis and the Manchurian Candidate," Scully shot back, perhaps a bit more coldly than was absolutely necessary. "Dr. Grissom was a sleep doctor, a neurologist, correct?"

"Yeah, he specialized in sleep disorders." Mulder nodded pensively.

"Perhaps his work was getting the better of him. It's not unheard of sometimes for doctors who work closely with patients to start suffering some of the very same symptoms that they are treating on a daily basis. Perhaps he himself had been suffering form sleep disorders, insomnia, any one of those conditions can lead to a certain level of increased mental disturbance. Hallucinations, paranoia, night terrors, perhaps he was so caught up in his own dream world his brain didn't even realize that it wasn't real."

"Dr. Scully, you are going with the Freddy Kruger murder theory here. I like it." Mulder grinned playfully at her as Krycek beside him chuckled at the quip, until Scully's glare and Mulder's confused frown quieted him. Immediately her hackles slammed up.

"It's just one theory, Mulder, I'm sure you have others. Perhaps Agent Krycek might have some useful insight I might have missed." She raised cool eyebrows at the other man who suddenly reddened and looked mildly abashed for laughing at her.

"Errr…well..." he swallowed nervously, stammering as he stared at the body. "Maybe he was a drug overdose of some kind? He was a doctor after all."

Scully shook her head hard in the negative, slipping off one blood covered, rubber glove and reaching behind her for the chart she had been recording information on. "His blood work came back negative for most sorts of drugs save for acetaminophen and traces of alcohol in his blood stream. Given that a glass of fine, single-malt whiskey was found in his room and he fact that he suffered from a mild case of arthritis in his knees, he probably was using both to dull the pain."

Krycek looked properly chastened. His face fell as he nodded and turned, and suddenly became very engrossed in the jars of chemicals and cleaning supplies on the counter behind him. She watched him wander off, feeling a tad triumphant in her set down, but her victory diminished slightly as Mulder eyed her with surprised curiosity. She couldn't ever hide anything from him, she long knew that about Mulder. As a profiler he was as perceptive as they came and having worked so closely with the man for the last year he could almost read her mind without her saying a word. And she knew what he could read there right then, and she wasn't exactly proud of it.

"Hey, Krycek, can I have a moment with Scully, please?" He asked his younger partner not in an unkind way. Krycek shrugged and nodded, looking relieved to be away from Scully and Grissom's dead body.

"Sure, I'll be just outside." He nervously pointed in the direction of the hallway, as he turned quickly in his perfectly tailored suit and nearly stumbled out of the door. Scully would have laughed as he did it, if Mulder wasn't giving her that damned, reprimanding look. When did the table's get turned in this one, she thought irritably, as Mulder crossed his arms and leaned against the far counter, looking for all the world how she imagined she did when she was reprimanding Mulder.

"What?" She tried to murmur nonchalantly, nervously tugging at the other glove on her hand, still covered in bodily fluids.

"You have such lovely green eyes, Scully." His mouth twitched in mild amusement.

She knew where he was going with this and she didn't find it funny. "Mulder, you know my eyes are blue." She turned from him as she moved towards the sink in the corner, anything to keep her occupied and not having to face him and the fact that he probably was right.

"Funny, for a moment there you could have fooled me. Why are you giving the kid such a hard time?"

She snorted. "Kid, Mulder, he looks like he just stepped out of a GQ photo shoot and found himself accidentally with a gun and a badge. What do you know about this Krycek anyway?"

"What did I know about you when you were assigned to work with me?"

"A lot more than you do about him or should I point out you quoted by own senior thesis to me the moment I walked into your office."

"Touché," Mulder agreed, as he pushed himself off the counter and slowly sauntered to the sink where she was scrubbing her hands hard with anti-bacterial soap. "I told you Krycek assigned himself on this case. And frankly I'm no happier about it than you are. Hell, I tried to lose him here while I went up to New York. Son-of-a-bitch found me at Grissom's sleep clinic. Kid must be part hound or something."

"How did he track you down?" Scully frowned up at him in surprise.

"God knows. Maybe he's a better investigator than either you or I are giving him credit for." Mulder glanced back towards the doors where Krycek had stumbled out. "The thing is, Scully, I could use the help. And the kid's eager and he doesn't run for the hills once I start spouting off one of my more elaborate theories. That's a rare commodity among new recruits."

"True," Scully admitted sullenly. "I didn't run for the hills."

"But you did say I was crazy," Mulder pointed out with a grin.

Standing in the rain of Bellefleur as she remembered. "Yes, I did say you were crazy."

"Anyway, we'll see how this goes. And face it, Scully, we could use all of the help we can get. Right now I'm _persona non grata_ in the Bureau. And they only let you near my cases and me because your work is useful and productive. I need someone who isn't as much in the doghouse as I am to get any leverage around here. And Krycek might just be that person."

"All right," she sighed. "So you want me to play nice with him?"

"Well, at least don't beat him up too bad, though I have to admit the blood work was a really nice smack down." His eyes lit up, impressed. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Who says you haven't been there already." She rinsed her hands. Mulder pulled out several paper towels from a dispenser by the sink and offered them to her, as she patted her arms dry.

"I've got to get back out to the boy-wonder outside," Mulder sighed regretfully and for a moment he looked disheartened by the idea, as if he too missed this familiar banter, this comfortable companionship between the two of them as they worked on cases like this together. "I'll keep you posted on what we find, okay?"

"Right," she nodded, glancing at Grissom. "I'll try to have a report to you on the doctor tomorrow."

"Thanks." He smiled gratefully, reaching across to squeeze her shoulder under her thin, medical scrubs. She watched him go wistfully, as he turned from her towards the door and out to where Krycek no doubt waited nervously.

"Always out having all of the fun, Mulder." She sighed longingly, looking back at the mess that was Grissom's corpse. "While I'm left here putting together all of the pieces."


	21. Do You Trust Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully voices her doubts about both Mulder's informant and Krycek.

She knew without evening asking security what had been taken from her office. It was the only thing that anyone could possibly want so badly as to dare to break into an FBI run facility in the middle of the single, largest Marine base in the United States. Even as Scully sat at the computer she had turned off when she had gone home earlier that day, she knew that her copy of the strongest evidence they had on the truth of the work of Grissom and Geraldi was gone. Someone was trying to hide the evidence of their crimes against those Marines twenty-four years before, to hide the fact that they had created something they could no longer control. If it hadn't been for the watchful eyes of one member of the security force there at the FBI facility, the theft probably would have gone unnoticed well into the next morning when she arrived for work. As it was, it was already too late to stop the true crime from being prevented. Dr. Grissom's autopsy records had been taken as well. Any information she had to back up Mulder's case had disappeared, by a thief who conveniently slipped under the noses of both the federal governments leading investigative group and its own military. She probably would have laughed at the irony of it, if she didn't already feel like pulling her hair out and kicking something out of sheer frustration. She had only just gotten her files back in order, neatly arranged in her filing cabinet, when Mulder stepped around the corner of her doorway, slowly surveying her office with worry, his eyes looking wonderingly to her in confusion. He didn't have to ask what happened. He simply knew by looking at her.

"When?" He watched her neatly shuffle one last folder, sticking it carefully in its assigned place.

"Tonight, after I had left work. I don't know who did it or how they got in. Security is checking on that now."

He grimly turned around her office, before leaning against the door jam. "They got my copy too. Got it out of my car. I'd put it under my seat. Somehow they found it."

He angrily pushed himself away from the door, swearing loudly and popping the wall with the heel of his hand, hard. Scully rarely, if ever, saw Mulder get physically violent. Still she didn't even flinch as he turned to her, dejection carving itself into his tired features.

"I'm sorry." It was all she could say as she stared at him from across her desk. She was sorry, sorry that there were those who would put him through this, that would put both of them through this. "They broke into my office. Went through my files, my computer." She looked helplessly at her monitor, still growing brightly with the file screen open, empty of the report Mulder had sent her. "I came as soon as security called, but the report was already gone."

"Someone went through a lot of trouble stealing both our copies to keep this a secret." Mulder chewed angrily at his bottom lip, sucking it in between his teeth, his scowl darkening thoughtfully.

"Without that report as evidence Skinner's not going to authorize an investigation." Scully watched him helplessly. They had worked so hard on this case. It was perhaps Mulder's best shot at reopening the X-files, his first real scientifically verifiable case and now all of their work was gone.

"He said it's never been more dangerous," Mulder murmured knowingly, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Skinner?"

"No, the man who leaked us the report, the one whose been helping us."

Why wasn't Scully particularly surprised? "You actually met with him?"

"He said that closing down the X-files was just the beginning, That we've never been in greater danger."

Danger, Scully wondered, personal or professional? "Do you trust him?"

"Our informant?" Mulder was pensive. He knew she wanted him to say yes, to say he had the utmost confidence. Yet she remembers Deep Throat as well and knew that things with these sorts of people were always complicated. Chances were this informant, like the last, hadn't even shared his real name with Mulder.

"Closing down the X-files wasn't just about shutting me down because I was an embarrassment, Scully. It was because there is something that someone wants to hide, something they are willing to kill to cover up. Stealing these reports, this was simply meant to stop us, to intimidate us enough to get us to back off, to prevent us from seeking any further."

"Into what? Into the military? Into their experiments?" Her fingers rubbed at her eyes in frustration, her head throbbing with anger, confusion and the lateness of the hour. "Did you find Cole at least?"

"Yeah, we did." Mulder's grim reply did not bode well. "He's dead, Scully."

"How?"

"I think he wanted to die," Mulder replied in weary contemplation. "Krycek swears he saw Cole with a gun."

"Did he have one?" Scully could already guess the answer.

"No. But that doesn't mean he didn't make Krycek believe it. I think Cole was just….tired. After twenty-four years of seeing everything, of all of those horrors, without even the release of sleep to forget. He didn't want to testify, Scully. He didn't want to uncover any truth. He just wanted to sleep."

Scully watched as Mulder slumped against her doorway again, looking for the entire world as if he himself hadn't slept in twenty-four years. They were so close on this one, so very close to uncovering what their own government had done to those poor men, all in the name of 'national security', to win a war they had no hope of actually being successful in. They had stolen the dreams from those men, stolen their rest and now it would never see the light of day.

They had failed, yet again.

"Why was your copy of the file under your front seat," Scully finally asked, not wanting to accuse him of carelessness, but feeling it ever so slightly. Perhaps, she reasoned, it wouldn't have mattered. Perhaps they would have found it wherever he had tried to hide it.

"I had it with me before Gerardi flew into town. No one knew about it, not even Krycek."

"You sure about that?" Scully couldn't help but blurt out. It sounded petty, but Deep Throats admonition rang in her ears. Trust no one. That meant even well meaning, raw recruits. She didn't know Alex Krycek, and for that matter, neither did Mulder.

"Krycek would have no way of knowing it was there," Mulder sighed heavily. "He may be young, Scully, but he's not out to screw me."

"And you're certain of this?"

He returned her frank expression evenly. "Scully, this isn't a game about who's the better partner."

"I didn't say it was, Mulder. What I'm saying is you're quick to forgive someone you know nothing about, to write him off as innocent, when you know that someone who had knowledge of this case just stole your best piece of evidence, conveniently after the one person who could testify to the fact was just killed."

"So you want to, what, suspect the new guy because you don't like him?" Mulder challenged.

"No, Mulder, I want you to remember what Deep Throat told us. You have such a blind spot for those who agree with you, who tell you what you want to hear, that you never question why it is they are so readily siding with you in the first place."

"Krycek's not a spy, Scully. I did look into him. Clean as a whistle, the whole way, sort of guy you'd bring home to your mother."

"You checked on him?" Scully was only vaguely surprised, but mostly dubious.

"Just after you asked the Lone Gunmen to do it." There was laughter in his exhausted eyes. "Aren't you the one who keeps telling me I need to stop being so paranoid?"

"Do you trust him?" She stared at him from across her office, feeling that the few feet of carpeting and officer furniture between them had suddenly become some sort of chasm, with her on one side, and him on the other. She wanted to somehow bridge that, to cross it and force him to see reason. But Mulder had the nasty of habit of burning all of his bridges.

"Trust him?" Mulder contemplated the words, rolling them around softly in his mind, before shaking his head. "Not as much as I trust you."

Trust. It was what their entire relationship was built on. She had walked into Fox Mulder's life as a spy, as a doubter, as a hindrance. She had stubbornly fought for every inch of the respect and faith he placed in her now. Scully didn't take that gift lightly. "Then if you trust me, Mulder, be careful with Krycek. Make sure that he's not using you to further his own agenda." Tom Colton came to mind then, a smiling, handsome, shining star, eager to make friends. Perhaps that was why she took an instant dislike to Alex Krycek.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Mulder replied, his gaze solemn as he pulled himself from away from the door, his shoulder's bowed with the weight of so many agendas, secrets, and schemes. "I'll have to make my report to Skinner in the morning."

He rolled around the edge of the door frame into the hall, unable to even bother with the niceties of a proper farewell. She watched as he slouched away, his dark head hanging low as his body seemed to fold around itself protectively. Against another scolding from Skinner, she wondered, or against the forces that seemed hell bent on pounding him into oblivion, she didn't know.


	22. Standoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully has a face-to-face with Krycek.

Scully didn't think she had seen a person look more peaceful in death than Augustus Cole. Even after her autopsy, his strong, dark skinned face had a look of utter contentment she didn't believe she had seen on one of the dead before. It was the grace of a man whose long journey had come to an end, one he was thankful to see finally over. Considering the things that Cole's unit had seen and witnessed in Vietnam, she would have though he had dreaded death. But twenty-four years without sleep, without the respite of dreaming, perhaps living a lifetime of nightmares meant that the Preacher could escape to a life he was never given in this world.

"Agent Scully" She turned to see Agent Krycek at the door, watching as she wheeled the now shrouded, powerfully built body of Cole into one of the waiting berths. He stood there nervously, his blue eyes flickering to the body on the cart with a pained grimace. "I just came to check on your progress."

"I'll be with you in a minute." She dismissed him, returning Cole to one of the stainless steel, refrigerated rooms where the dead were kept until their remains were dispersed. She had no idea who would claim Augustus Cole. She wondered if he had any family, anyone who cared enough about him in death to see to a proper burial. It struck her as sad that a man who had been forced to live in his living nightmare had no one to mourn his passing.

She found Krycek in the hallway, his expression ill as he watched her remove her surgical glasses. "How can I help you, Krycek?"

He cleared his throat as he glanced behind her towards the autopsy lab. "I wanted to check in on your report. See what you had found before we see Skinner this afternoon."

"We?" She cringed slightly as Krycek used the term. "Mulder couldn't come down himself for the findings?"

"He sent me." Krycek supplied, falling in step easily beside her as she moved down the tiled hallway towards her offices, not even bothering to stop in the locker room to change from her medical scrubs into her professional clothes.

"Unusual for him," she murmured, fumbling in the pocket of her green scrubs for the keys to her office.

"He said he wanted to try talking to Dr. Geraldi this morning, see if he'd open up about the experiments." Krycek looked doubtful as Scully unlocked the shining, new brushed metal deadbolts on her office, installed by the maintenance staff after the break in. "He said someone came into your office the other night?"

"Yep." Scully opened the door and entered, glancing over her shoulder to see if Krycek would follow. "They took the key piece of evidence for your case."

"I guess that's why I was hoping you had turned up something with Augustus Cole?" Damn, but he looked guilty. She supposed it went without saying. After all it was his bullets that had ultimately killed the man, thus nixing any hope he and Mulder had of having the living proof of the experiments. Rookie mistake, one couldn't fault the young guy, at least under normal circumstances. But Alex Krycek had invited himself into the most unusual of circumstances and with everything on the line, they had no room for careless errors and newbie screw-ups, no matter what Krycek thought he saw that night.

She waved Krycek to a seat across from her desk, pulling up the file as it stood at the moments, sans her last notes from her work that morning. At least the night before she had done the autopsy work on Cole's brain stem and had found the surgical damage done that had been described in the now missing, military medical report. "Cole had the same scar as Henry Willig and the same section of his brain stem removed. He also had anti-depressants in his system, the same ones he stole from the pharmacy, in order to maintain the serotonin in his blood. Everything about his condition checks out with my hypothesis as to what was going on."

"So these people were butchered to create some sort of weird, super solider?" Krycek looked as if she was spouting strange science fiction and in truth it sounded something very much like that. She only wished it was that simple.

"The government had experimented throughout the 20th century on different ways to improve soldier performance. In the Cold War millions of dollars were funneled into all sorts of various projects in the hopes of gaining an edge in terms of weapons and men." She thought of her own father, a military man during that period. "It was the single, largest expansion of the US military in its history. Who is to say what was being done in that period? I'm sure this isn't the only dirty, little secret the government is keeping in terms of their human experimentation." The Erlenmeyer flask with its strange, deformed fetus came to mind and the alien virus that she still had found no further information on.

Something she said made the other man chuckle softly. Scully felt her eyebrows rise to the roots of her bright, red hair before Krycek finally admitted what he found so funny. "You just sound a lot like Mulder. You know, with the government experiment." His mirth began to fade under the steady, cold insistence of her stare and he cleared his throat nervously, looking for any spot in the room other than her.

She continued to watch him fidget in silence for several long moments before responding to him. "Perhaps I sound like Agent Mulder because I worked so closely with him for as long as I did. I learned to value his insight, even if I didn't always agree with his opinions." She let that sink in for several minutes, taking a vague sort of pleasure out of Krycek's steadily reddening features and the flash of irritation that it sparked out of him. Now it was his turn to be insulted.

"You think I'm just some snot-nosed brat, just set loose out of Quantico, don't you?" Krycek's expression hardened, his mouth twisting just slightly as he spat out the words contemptuously, eyes flashing. In truth, she had provoked the response. She had been needling him from the moment he stepped on the case, but the anger did slightly surprise her all the same.

"Agent Krycek, it's not that I don't feel that you aren't a capable agent." That much was true. Obviously Skinner wouldn't have allowed him access to this case if he didn't think Krycek could hack it. "But the type of work Agent Mulder does is not your standard-level, FBI investigation. There are questions, elements that you are never taught about at Quantico, things that most people find upsetting or disturbing.'

"Such as aliens," Krycek challenged sharply.

"Such as anything. Agent Mulder's work deals with a wide spectrum of unexplained phenomena."

Krycek nodded, a wry, irate smile twisted his mouth. "Funny, Agent Scully, you'd be the last person I would expect to have an open mind when it came to Agent Mulder's work?"

It was meant as a jab back, a throwing down of the gauntlet and it was effective. Despite his youth and eagerness, Krycek didn't like that she had assumed he was unable to perform the task and he was ready to call her on it. Well, she reasoned, she should at least give him the respect enough to allow his arguments to be made.

"I assume you mean because I'm a scientist and doctor that I'm unsuitable to be partnered with Mulder because I don't truly believe in his work?"

"I believe that perhaps it helps him, once in a while, to have someone tell him that he's not insane for thinking the way he does," Krycek amended pointedly, leaning forward in his seat, elbows resting on the fronts of the arm rests. "You know he's a laughing stock to most everyone in this place. And I believe in the work he's doing, the work he's trying to do."

"And what work would that be, Krycek?" Did he even got what it was that truly drove Mulder every waking minute of the day.

"Explaining those things the FBI is too quick to dismiss and ignore because it doesn't fit into their neat definition of plausibility." It was a nice explanation, and not totally untrue, especially if you didn't know Mulder well. It wasn't Scully's place to enlighten Krycek on though.

"Why are you interested in those sorts of cases then?" She crossed her arms and met his incensed glare calmly. "What would make someone like you want to risk their entire career and reputation chasing after Spooky Mulder and his little, green men?"

"What makes you do it?" Krycek replied promptly, glancing about her well-ordered office. "Obviously when you joined the FBI you didn't see yourself as Mulder's sidekick, did you?"

"I don't know how much you really know about me, Agent Krycek," she replied with icy evenness.

"Probably about as much as you know about me." He smirked ironically. "I know you've at least run a background check on me. Certainly Mulder has."

"How are you so certain?" Scully tried to play it off-handed, wondering if she should be surprised that Krycek suspected as much.

"Because it is what I would do if I were in that position," he shrugged, leaning back again into his chair, his blue eyes glittering. "After all, you don't trust me, do you?"

Scully bit her tongue as she pursed her lips. Krycek wasn't stupid, she would give him that much. Perhaps inexperienced, but far from foolish. "In this work, as you are gathering from this case, it's hard to trust anyone who come in here professing interest and assistance. It has a tendency of becoming so much more complicated."

"I'm not that complicated of a guy, Agent Scully. Unless you found out something about me I didn't know." He seemed almost amused by the idea that she might dig up something suspicious on him. But she hadn't, or at least Frohike hadn't. Without a word, she reached into the file cabinet by her desk and pulled out the manila folder full of the information Frohike had emailed her the other day.

"I know that your parents are Russian immigrants. Your father used to teach in Moscow, science I believe." She flipped the file open in front of her, with a picture of a young Alex Krycek, small and skinny in his pre-teens, dressed in over-sized football pads, kneeling by a helmet. "Your parents defected to the US before you were born. You grew up in upstate New York, in a community of other ex-pats. You were a good student, a talented athlete, attended Syracuse where you majored in Sociology and Political Science. When you graduated, you worked for two years in the State Department here in DC before enrolling into the FBI Academy."

She pulled out Krycek's service record from behind his Syracuse University transcripts. "You did well at the Academy and have worked in several departments in the Bureau. Your most recent work was in regards to the World Trade Center bombing a year ago in New York." She glanced up at Krycek's careful, impassive face over the file. "Have I got anything wrong there?"

"Do you have the make and model of my car," he asked, only half joking. She had disquieted him a bit.

"All in all, Krycek, you're as squeaky clean as an altar boy." She tossed his Bureau record back on the stack of papers she had accumulated on him. "Everything that the Bureau could possibly want in one of its agents."

"But you still don't trust me?"

"Trust isn't something you earn from me just because you played football and worked for politicians," Scully said simply. "I don't trust you because I find it terribly convenient that you file for the same case Mulder wants, just an hour before he did."

"I heard about it. It was pretty big news and I have friend in New York city. They thought it was strange, so did I, so I asked for it." He shrugged lazily.

The sad thing was, she thought, his story might just be true. "Perhaps. But you'll excuse me if I am suspicious. I can't say that Mulder's work hasn't drawn a certain level of animosity from those even within the Bureau. Faced with that sort of resistance, you can see why conclusions would be drawn."

Perhaps he did. For a moment he looked mutinous, before his face broke into a friendly, understanding smile. "I can get that, Agent Scully. A secret, government project, people mysteriously dying, I get why someone tried breaking into your office to cover that up. I guess it just feels so…weirdly surreal, like something out of a Tom Clancy novel or something."

"Or something," Scully murmured as she closed his file.

"Look, you and Agent Mulder, I realize you are close." He at least didn't utter the word "close" with the sly wink and smile she had half expected him to. "But I'm not here to get in between you or to undermine Mulder's work. I believe in it and I truly want to help. And if I can do anything to lend a hand to him, I will."

"I'm glad to hear that." She didn't have a reason to be a raging bitch to him or to continue being hostile. But she couldn't shake the feeling of being invaded by an outsider, someone who didn't know what was going on, who could potentially worsen an already bad situation.

"And I'm sorry about my behavior towards you." She softened her expression just a little. Perhaps her fear and paranoia were unreasonable, brought on by all of the events since Deep Throats death and culminating into this place she and Mulder were now in, the two of them against the world.

"It's okay, I'm the new guy." He shrugged, smiling brilliantly, his white teeth flashing as he waved it off. "I expect that with every close team there's an amount of hazing the fresh blood."

"I suppose." She tried to remember if there was any hazing on Mulder's part when she joined. Obviously, there was their first meeting, with his line, "Do you think I'm Spooky?" She smiled faintly as she remembered that.

"Our first case together, in Oregon, our car electricity failed suddenly. Mulder got out of the car and painted an X on the spot with orange road paint and didn't explain to me what the hell it was all about." And he never did, looking back on it, though having read through the material and the old cases, she had now figured out the theory about electro-magnetic disturbances around alien spacecraft. "At least he hasn't pulled the old, creepy shtick on you yet."

"No, but he did try really hard to ditch me." Krycek seemed more amused than angry now, though she could guess at just how pleased he had been at the time. "I guess there's a bit of an acceptance curve with him?"

"Just a bit." She actually did grace Krycek with a real smile this time, one of shared understanding about the prickly nature of Fox Mulder. "Don't worry, he'll come around. You have to give him some time. He hasn't exactly made a ton of friends here during his time. Either he was too brilliant and people resented him or he was too weird and people avoided him. And those few friends he did have here for the most part have met untimely ends."

Krycek's eyes widened at that news, startled. "Dead?"

"It happens in this line of work, you know."

"I know, but…it's a little disconcerting to find out about a guy you've only been working with a few days."

"Don't worry, I think you're smart enough to be okay. Besides, nothing untoward has happened to me yet, besides a few scratches here and there."

"Still," Krycek pulled at his immaculate dress tie nervously. "I guess I'll have to watch out around these cases, eh?"

"Just a little bit," Scully agreed. "Look, I'll have the full autopsy report for you two later today. Till then, just tell Mulder I found at least evidence of what he was looking for. But I have no proof it was a government experiment that caused it. He'll just have to hope that Dr. Geraldi admits to it." Best of luck, she thought. She doubted the good doctor would ever fully admit to his role in what happened and even if he did, it was his word against that of the Department of Defense.

"Thanks." Krycek rose, extending a hand to her across the desk. She took it this time instead of ignoring it, but didn't rise to see him out.

"Just so you know, Scully, I'm not here to take your place. I'm here for all of the same reasons you are."

"I hope so, Krycek," she murmured as he released her hand and turned for her office door. "I hope so."


	23. Sibling Rivalry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully and her sister give her baby brother grief.

"So, Charlie, Mom says your seeing someone." Melissa Scully toyed with the crystal that rested in the hollow of her throat, her long fingers nonchalantly wrapping around the black choker as she winked at her younger sister. Dana snorted from her seat across the Scully family dining room table, grinning madly over the bowl of mashed potatoes her mother just passed her and trying hard not to burst into peals of laughter at the stunned look on her younger brother's ruddy, freckled face.

"Say what?" Charlie blinked, still, like a deer in headlights as he stared between first Melissa, his eldest sister and Dana, the sibling just above him in the Scully hierarchy. He had the distinct look of a man who thought he was going to be eaten by hungry lions, his fork hanging somewhere midway between his plate and his mouth.

"Girls!" Maggie Scully rolled her eyes as she returned to the table, a plate of sliced roast in hand. "Stop picking on your little brother. It's his last night of leave before shipping out tomorrow. You're supposed to play nice."

"Whose rule is that?" Dana took the plate from her mother and ignoring Maggie's mild, reprimanding look.

"Yeah, I figure that makes him fair game. We won't see him for another six months." Melissa grinned darkly at the youngest Scully child. "So does she have a name?"

"More importantly, is she real?" Dana chimed in gaily.

Charlie threw a napkin at Dana's head, but missed, the linen cloth tumbled past her to the floor.

"No throwing things at the table, Charlie," Maggie reprimanded blithely. "Twenty-eight years old and you would think you'd have grown out of that by now."

"They started it," he grumbled mulishly, glaring at his elder sisters.

"We were only curious," Melissa airily replied, "After all, you never know, what if she's 'the one'?"

Charlie nearly choked on his steamed broccoli.

"Missy, I've seen her on, I don't know, all of three dates."

"Slacker," Dana hissed as she sipped innocently from her glass of wine.

"Shut it, you." Charlie tried to aim a kick under the table for Dana, the sibling closest to him in age and experience. The smallest of the Scully children was easily able to maneuver her shorter legs, earning Charlie a frown from his mother and a laugh from his older sisters.

"What about you, Doctor Dana?" Charlie muttered over his forkful of mashed potatoes. "I haven't seen you bringing home anyone in a while."

"Why are you picking on me? Neither has Missy!" Dana glared at her smirking elder sister.

"Missy's too wild to settle down anytime soon," Charlie shrugged reasonably. "Isn't that right?"

"Thanks for the sentiment, Charles." Melissa rolled her eyes heaven ward in an imitation of their mother. It was clear Maggie wasn't particularly pleased with this line of discussion amongst her brood.

"Charlie, I wouldn't care if you were leaving for war tomorrow. Enough! No picking on your sisters. And you two!" She shot amused glares at her two elder daughters, her blue eyes sparkling with mirth despite it all. "Quit provoking him."

"Yes, Mom," they chorused, realizing their fun for the evening was, for now. That didn't mean Charlie was ready to dump the discussion entirely.

"Seriously, Dana, when are you bringing someone home? I need more male blood around here to ward off my sisters?" Charlie glared grumpily at Melissa.

"Not in a dating mood, Charles. Sorry I can't turn it on and off for you," Dana shrugged, finding the turn of conversation less than pleasing. "It's a bit hard out there for a girl who cuts up dead bodies for a living to find a guy who's into that."

"You never know, some strange things I hear about in the Navy." Charlie began with a leering grin.

"Charles," Maggie's voice rang sharply, causing her youngest child to duck his auburn head between his broad shoulders and somehow try to fit his frame under the table, as if he were a boy of six again.

"Sorry, Mom," he mumbled, though it was clear he wasn't particularly apologetic, his dark blue eyes glinting mischief as he glanced sideways at Dana. "So the FBI has you locked down in the dungeon again?"

"Back in Quantico, with the latest bunch of FBI recruits and all the dead bodies I could possibly want." And not a breath of real field work in sight, she realized. She had waited patiently for Skinner to honor the promise he had made the minute he had reassigned her to the FBI Academy. She had a feeling her connection to Mulder and his persistent use of her despite their separation might have something to do with it. "I'm hoping that I can get back out in the field eventually. I'll just have to be patient."

"Still, pathology, that's what you wanted to do when you joined the FBI, right?" Charlie's question was innocent enough. Off to assignment for months at a time, Charlie was often out of the loop of his sisters' lives. Melissa and Maggie both settled worried frowns on Dana as Charlie looked puzzled, realizing he had perhaps touched a sore spot with his sister he hadn't intentionally meant to tread on.

"It's all right," Dana sighed, smiling tightly. Really, she wasn't made of glass "I was sent back to Quantico because they closed my division. It was sort of a censure, I guess…not really." Not for her at least. "Anyway, I wasn't happy about it, but what can you do? Orders are orders."

That was something Charlie could understand at least, being in the Navy like his father and brother. "I hear you there. It won't effect your record, will it?"

"No," Dana replied quickly. "It's just…hard." She sighed, pushing the steamed broccoli restlessly on her plate. "You get used to doing field work, to doing something other than grading papers and dissecting bodies, and you don't realize till too late you miss that sort of work." She thought about Mulder and Krycek, out on the Augustus Cole case, while she was stuck in the lab. "And I miss the work. It was…challenging. Especially given that the highlight of my day seems to be trying to make some green-faced recruit fresh off the plane from Idaho understands the basics of how a gunshot wound to the brain works."

"You'd think that be sort of simple," Charlie snorted.

"No discussing work over dinner." It was Maggie's way of diverting her daughter from discussing autopsies over the table. "Have you spoken to your former partner?"

"Mulder? Yeah. I'm surprised he isn't trying to call me right now, looking for some sort of lab work from me. You could hardly tell they separated us, the way he carries on." She frowned, recalling Krycek's visit to her office the other day. "He's got a new partner now. Some kid, new to the work. Mulder doesn't seem to mind him so much."

"But you do." Melissa's gaze was sharp and intuitive across the table.

"Sounds like someone is jealous," Charlie supplied as he reached across the table for another helping of mashed potatoes.

"I'm not jealous!" Dana shrugged defensively. "Much."

Melissa and Charlie both shot her dubious, knowing looks.

"All right, perhaps a little jealous," she admitted, reaching for her wine glass and taking a long, hard swallow. "I just find it hard to understand why they have him working with a green recruit who has no more scientific experience than a gerbil, when the reason they put me on there in the first place was to give him scientific experience. I don't know." She jabbed at her broccoli in frustration again, the green stem breaking under the tines of her fork. "Perhaps I'm just angry they are out there doing work while I'm stuck inside being responsible."

"It doesn't sound as if Mulder has replaced you, though, if he's running to you every five minutes," Melissa offered thoughtfully. "You're work is still valuable to him."

"I guess." Dana wasn't willing to concede her sister's excellent point-of-view.

"It just sucks being stuck inside watching all the other kids playing." Charlie nodded knowingly. "And I feel your pain. I get it in my job all of the time. And I wish I could say it does get better, but it's the US Government." His dark blue eyes were sympathetic. "You're ex-partner doesn't sound so bad though."

"Mulder? He's not. Well, I mean, outside of the 'believing-aliens-took-his-sister part'." She waited for Charlie's stunned reaction and when it wasn't forthcoming, she continued. "He's a damn good investigator when he wants to be. So intuitive, it's almost scary, I've yet to understand how he makes the conclusions that he does and usually they are correct."

"The way Bill has it, he's a raving lunatic with a gun and a badge, whose dragging you on one snipe hunt after another." Charlie grimaced. "Of course, Bill would say that about any partner you had, even if they didn't believe in aliens."

"Bill's just protective, that's all," Maggie jumped in, quick to defend the one child who wasn't there to speak for himself. "Besides, he's well aware that Dana can take care of herself."

"Funny, he doesn't sound like it," Charlie murmured, busying himself with his plate and ignoring his mother's pointed glare.

"Bill just worries because he cares." Melissa tried to smooth out her mother's words. "Besides, Bill doesn't know your old partner. Maybe if he met him, it would be a different story." There was more than just peacemaker going on behind Melissa's words. Dana could see the sparkle in her elder sister's eye.

So could Charlie. He leaned over conspiratorial and hissed in a loud, stage whisper. "I think that's Missy's way of trying to set you up with this guy."

"I see that," Dana replied in an equally loud whisper.

"What? It's not like you two work together anymore."

"We had this discussion, Missy, thank you," Dana replied. "Mulder is my friend and my co-worker. But I don't think I could handle all the baggage that comes along with him." His sister, his sense of guilt, his determination to uncover all of the secrets and lies around him, "Besides, you guys don't even know him. There are days I'd as soon shoot him than talk to him."

"That sounds about on par for you any day," Charlie replied promptly. This time it was Dana's turn to try and kick him under the table, but her woefully short legs missed completely, causing her younger brother to laugh.

"So we've picked on Charlie, we've picked on Dana, how about Melissa?" Dana shifted the topic to her older sister, who colored to the roots of her auburn hair. "So just what were you up to on your travels west."

"I told you where I went," she began, but Charlie cut in skillfully, used to working tandem with Dana on picking on the older siblings.

"Yeah, but not what you did. I was betting you hooked up with some rich playboy and were sailing around on his yacht in Alaska."

Melissa looked appropriately horrified. "What would give you that impression?"

"Because it's about as un-Melissa-ish as I could possibly think of," Charlie grinned wickedly, toasting her teasingly with his wine glass. "Dana was boring, she said you'd taken up with hippies and were living in the forest without electricity or toilet paper."

Melissa tried to glare at her younger sister, but could only manage a slightly irritated smirk. "No toilet paper?"

"I can imagine a lot of truths I would come to in my life if I had to pee in the forest with no light or toilet paper." Dana winked at her. "Mom was romantic though, she thought you were in Wine Country, writing a novel."

"I didn't think that was romantic. I thought that was something Missy would do."

"You forgot the handsome, attractive vineyard owner named Renaldo." Charlie supplied.

"It wasn't Renaldo, it was Thomas," Dana corrected.

"Who was Renaldo?"

"The dog."

"I had a dog in Mom's story?" Melissa glanced sideways at her mother. "I always wanted a dog."

"I think Mom's been reading too much chick lit," Charlie snorted.

"If you had a dog, Missy, would you name it Renaldo?" Dana wondered aloud, pushing her plate away.

"I don't know why I picked Renaldo for a dogs name," Maggie sighed, clearly embarrassed her children had brought this up. "It just struck me as one of those names you wouldn't give to a human."

"But you'd give it to a dog?"

"Well, you wouldn't give a human the name Fluffy or Fido."

"I dated a guy name Fido once," Melissa offered with a sly smile. She nodded towards Dana. "You remember him? He was the guy with the dog collar and motorcycle."

"Oh yes…I remember him. The one who had to ask me how to spell his name?"

"That's the one. His real name was Stanley, but he hated it."

"And Fido was a suitable substitute?" Charlie chortled.

"When was this," Maggie asked. Clearly she hadn't heard the story of Fido before now.

"Dana was in college. It was when I had an apartment in College Park with her."

"And you never told me?" Maggie frowned at her other daughter, perturbed.

"I figured the last thing you needed to worry about was a son-in-law with a dog's name," Dana shrugged her thin shoulders. "Besides, he went to prison shortly after that and no one had to worry anymore.

"Prison?" Maggie murmured weakly, turning first from one daughter, to the other daughter, to her son. "Charlie, please tell me you have never dated someone with a dog collar who ended up in prison."

"Not 'dated', I don't think that's what they call it when you pay for it."

Much to Dana's delight, that one statement effectively broke her mother.

"Charlie, you should come home on leave more often. You make Mom do the funniest things." Melissa grinned as Maggie buried her head in her napkin and howled with laughter.

"You know," Dana, grinned back at her sister. "I'm shocked and surprised we haven't been the death of Mom yet."

"Just give us some time!" Charlie warned cheerily. "One of us will do something to shorten her life expectancy."


	24. Duane Berry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Melissa calls her kid sister about the news events in Virginia.

For once, when her phone rang at her office desk, it wasn't Mulder.

"Scully," she muttered as she packed away the last of her things, gathering her notes on her desk to slip into her briefcase.

"Hey, it's me." Her sister, Melissa, was about as good at greetings as Mulder was, forgoing niceties and assuming her younger sister would recognize the sound of her voice. "Where's Marion, Virginia?"

"Marion?" It didn't sound particularly familiar. "Maybe down south, past Richmond?" She wasn't as familiar with the areas that weren't either DC or Norfolk adjacent. "I don't know. Why?"

"It's all over the news here and I hadn't heard of it before."

"Sorry, I'm not a walking atlas for you, Missy, but there are limits even to my knowledge." She smiled as it occurred to her what her sister was saying. "Why are they covering something that far away on the DC local news?"

"I don't know, that's why I was confused. Apparently it's big. It's been on for the entire broadcast, something about an escaped convict holding up a store there and I guess the FBI is involved, which was why I was wondering if you had heard anything about it?"

"Want to use your sister as your inside mole into the workings of the Bureau?" Scully reached for the remote to the small television in the corner of her office. She rarely, if ever, used it, but she flipped it on, pressing the volume on mute and searching for Channel 8 and the six o'clock news.

"Well, I figured of all the people I know, you'd be the person to ask, Special Agent Scully," Melissa replied cheekily. On the television the news report was flashing a picture of a middle-aged sallow faced man, hair graying over wild, dark eyes. The name under the picture said Duane Barry and mentioned something about being an escaped inmate.

"Strange. Prison escapes are something for the state police, unless it's federal, than they call in the US Marshals. The FBI rarely gets involved in these sorts of messes."

"Except, he's taken hostages. I guess they got a negotiation team from DC down there to help." Melissa was distant, engrossed for a moment in the action on the television. As Scully watched on her end, a female reporter came on screen. In the background Scully could see crowds of townsfolk, curious onlookers watching the scene surrounding the darkening strip mall, as police in blue uniforms vainly tried to hold back the crowds with yellow police tape.

"All of those poor people," Melissa sighed, ever empathetic. "What their families must be going through."

"And here we are, watching it on television as if it's some sort of soap opera." The irony of that wasn't lost of Scully. "Missy, no offense, but why did you call me?"

"I don't know," her sister murmured softly. "A feeling, I guess. Don't these sorts of tragedies make you sad?"

"They do, but then I deal with these things every day. It's a dark world we live in, Melissa, and I wish everything could be about your sunshine and peaceful thoughts."

"This has nothing to do with peaceful thoughts, Dana," Melissa chided, well used to her sister's flippant remarks about her beliefs. "This man, whoever he is, has a lot of demons he's seeking to exercise. And I find that sad…sad for him."

"Who is this guy, anyway?" Scully unmuted the sound just enough to hear a soft rumble of the report, but not enough to drowned out her sister on the other end of the line.

"They said he's a man who has a history of mental violence. That was all they reported really, beyond the fact that he had escaped. It's a pity. Poor man can't help that he is that way."

"No more than those families can help that their loved ones are caught in this mess." Scully saw the camera panning the screen, around to the buildings surrounding their location. "Looks like they called SWAT out on this one."

"I hope no one gets hurt," Melissa sounded alarmed.

"Well that's the idea of SWAT, to minimize the damage when it's a truly dangerous person. Did they say if this Duane Barry was armed?"

"Yes." Melissa clicked her tongue. "I wonder if he can be reasoned with? Perhaps they can talk him down off the cliff?"

"I don't know, depends on who they send in there, and how they go about it." Scully watched the policeman behind the reporter, holding back the crowds and press and watching over the yellow tape line that barricaded the public away from the dangerous part of the strip mall. A SWAT truck parked, just as a plain sedan drove up beside it and two people clambered out of the car, flashing badges to one of the officers approaching them, who clearly directed them to some place just out of sight of the camera.

"Holy hell," Scully breathed, nearly dropping the phone receiver in shock as she recognized the pair of suited men. Mulder fell into step behind the young Krycek as the two moved off camera to wherever the police directed them.

"What?

"That was Mulder," she hissed, wishing she could back up the footage on the television and cursing that she couldn't.

"Mulder? As in your former partner?"

"Yes!" Scully turned up the sound more and watched the screen anxiously. They showed no further shots of the area where the FBI gathered or the two new agents to arrive. "What the hell would he be doing there?"

"Didn't you say that he was a psychologist? Perhaps they want him to lend his expertise."

"Maybe." Scully frowned as she grabbed her cell phone from her purse. There were no messages on it from Mulder and he hadn't called her office phone all afternoon. "Mulder did work in Violent Crimes for years. But if they know who this guy is, they have his records; they don't need a profile on him. They already know how he thinks, what his psychosis is, what is driving him…" She paused as it suddenly fell into place, clicking together in her brain like over-large puzzle pieces sliding together.

"Dana?" Melissa murmured softly.

"Missy, I've got to call you back. I think I know what is going on."

"Okay, I'll talk to you later."

Scully didn't even bid her sister goodbye as her fingers slammed on the receiver cradle, cutting the line and dialing Mulder's cell phone frantically. It rang and rang, but no one picked up and when it went straight to his voice mail she swore and hung up.

"Damn it!" She frowned back at the television. Duane Berry perhaps was delusional, but she could only think of one delusion that would cause the Richmond FBI branch to send straight to DC for Mulder specifically, and only one reason that Mulder would agree to rush down there. Barry likely was spouting something about being an alien abductee. Only Mulder could possibly involve himself in something like this, she realized as she stared at the television. She turned up the volume as the reporter shared the details of just who Duane Barry was as far as they knew.

"According to the Davis County Sheriffs Office, Barry has had a history of violent behavior, with a history that goes back a decade. Barry was arrested seven years ago after forcibly kidnapping his next-door-neighbor. Barry is armed and is considered extremely dangerous and we must caution all of those watching in the Marion area to please, stay away from the scene as Sheriff's officers and the FBI make efforts to try to handle the situation in the quickest and most reasonable manner possible."

"Too late for that," Scully breathed at the television, seeing the circus already surrounding what looked to be a sleepy town shopping center. If Barry wasn't already worked up before this point, the hysteria outside was sure to make what was already a dangerous and tense situation even worse. And for whatever reason, Mulder was in the thick of it.

"I sure hope somebody knows what they are doing, Mulder," she whispered as Duane Barry's dark, dull eyes peered at her from outside of her television screen. She shivered ever so slightly.


	25. He Doesn't Know What He's Dealing With

Duane Barry had proven more difficult to check up on than even Mulder had anticipated. Scully had spent an hour tearing through the electronic FBI records on Barry, finding very little of any substantive use for Mulder down in Marion, Virginia. He had been former special agent in the 70's, with exemplary work, commendations and recommendations overflowing his files. He looked as if he were quickly on his way to a Field Office head, perhaps a Section Chief. But something had gone wrong, horribly wrong, and had derailed a career once so promising. Sounded like someone else she knew, she thought sadly as she tried to piece together the files from what she had. 

Sometime in 1982 there was an incident, it wasn't detailed in his file and no one thought to elaborate on it. Shortly after the FBI had released Barry with his full pension, something having to do with mental stresses due to work. Then where was nothing, till a missing persons report showed up in his file from 1985 from Pulaski, Virginia. It had been placed and signed off by Barry's wife, when he had gone missing for three weeks without a word. Ex-wife, she amended, as she perused through court records. Barry's wife divorced him later that year, sighting "irreconcilable differences", and Scully could only surmise it stemmed from the one psychotic episode she had managed to discover. In the files of the Pulaski police she found the incident referred to so off-handedly by the news reporters, Barry kidnapping his next-door-neighbor in an effort to take him somewhere. It never panned out, whatever the plan, as Barry had been captured, the neighbor released, and Barry sent to the Davis County facility from which he had escaped. End of story. Nothing about it smacked of any of the alien abduction cases Mulder had collected over the years, the ones that Scully had so assiduously read over in there spare moments in the basement office.

Her hand stretched to her phone as she continued perusing the files, her fingers dialing a number that she hated to admit had become very familiar to her. There wasn't even a ring at the other end of the line, only a click as Frohike answered with a jovial, "Agent Scully, to what do I owe this surprise, personal call?"

She knew that Frohike was deliberately trying to taunt Langley, but for once the blonde man was silent.

"Not a social call, Frohike. Its another favor."

"It's never a favor for you, Agent Scully," Frohike practically purred. Scully rolled her eyes and felt her mouth tug up in a smirk, despite herself.

"I need some information on a former FBI agent, Duane Barry."

"Barry? He's the guy they are talking about on TV right now." Frohike was intrigued.

"That's the one."

"He's ex-FBI, is he? TV isn't mentioning that."

"No, Mulder found that out." Scully glanced back to the television in the corner, still flickering with Duane Barry and his hostages. "He's down there in Marion with the negotiation team."

"Shit," Frohike breathed. "Why would they call Mulder in?"

"Why would you think? Listen, I need to see if you an access any psychological evaluation records, anything that might indicate why it is this guy think he's an alien abductee."

"They don't have that in his FBI file?"

"They've taken it out." Scully frowned at Barry's incomplete records, scrolling through them quickly. "Someone didn't want anyone to know about them." That way, she realized, if Barry ever did do something like he pulled in Marion, the FBI had plausible deniability about what would prompt such an action from one of there former own.

"I got something," Frohike mumbled. "Says here that Barry was discharged from the Bureau in '82."

"Yeah, all I got is that he failed a psych evaluation." Scully flipped to the record about his discharge.

"Worse than that." Frohike whistled low under his breath. "In '82 he was shot while on a case, drug stake out. Shot by his own gun. Caused severe brain damage, cut through his bilateral frontal lobes. Does not sound like a good day at the office."

Scully stopped, perfectly still in front of her computer, as her mouth went suddenly very dry. "What did you say?"

"Man was shot in the line of duty and it damaged his brain. Hell of a way for the FBI to treat a guy who gave up so much." Frohike grumbled.

"Can you fax me a copy of those medical reports?" Scully reached slowly over to her fax machine, turning it on. "As soon as you can. I want to see what his medical file says."

"Sure thing." She could hear him clicking buttons as her fax machine beeped into life beside her. The modem it was connected to chirped and chattered under her desk.

"Thanks, Frohike," she replied absently as the first paper slowly crept out of the printer.

"Mulder has gotten himself into something he doesn't understand again, hasn't he?" Frohike sounded vaguely worried.

"I'm afraid he might have, but not by his own fault this time." Someone wasn't telling the whole story, even to the FBI agents on the ground, and Scully couldn't figure out why. "Listen, I'll let you go for now, Frohike. I'll get back to you later." She clicked off the phone absently as she reached for the sheets, hot out of the machine, her eyes scanning through the blurry facsimiles as she finally realized just how uninformed the team on the ground in Marion was. She reached for the phone to call Mulder, staring at the diagnosis report. As it had when she tried to call earlier, it went straight to his voice mail. She slammed her receiver back down. Why in the hell did the man carry a cell phone if he never had it on? 

Swearing loudly, she stared at the television screen, which happened to have panned on the car that Mulder and Krycek arrived in earlier that evening. She reached for the receiver again and dialed for the switchboard operator, waiting for the woman's professional voice to come on the other line. "This is Agent Scully. I have information for the team down in Marion, Virginia, on the Duane Barry case. Is there a way you can patch me through to them?"

"One moment, Agent Scully," The woman on the other end was all politeness as she placed Scully on hold, and for several heartbeats she waited till a new voice sounded on the end of the line.

"This is Branson." It was a masculine voice, but neither it nor the name he mentioned sound in the least way familiar to Scully.

"This is Agent Dana Scully up in Quantico. I was asked by Agent Mulder to look up information on the mental history of Duane Barry. I need to speak to someone in charge right now about this case."

"Excuse me?" 

Holy hell! She bit her lip in sheer frustration. "This is the FBI negotiation team in Marion, correct?" She could feel her voice take on the quality of hardening steel as the man at the other end babbled for a moment.

"Yeah, just a moment." She could hear him remove the phone receiver from his ear and call into the general room, wherever it was. "Who here can talk to an Agent Scully?"

She counted to ten as there was a general shuffling in the room and someone else took the receiver.

"Agent Scully, it's Alex Krycek."

"Where's Mulder," she demanded. Why wasn't he answering his own phone?

Krycek hesitated for the briefest of seconds. "He traded himself for one of the hostages."

She was shocked that her heart didn't explode in that moment. "What," she barked, staring wildly back at the television as if looking towards it for an explanation.

"He's in with Duane Barry," Krycek offered feebly.

Of course, she wanted to spit out, because Mulder believes the madman was an alien abudctee. He would move heaven and earth to get Duane Barry out of that situation alive and in one piece so he could interview him, extract his information on his experiences. Mulder, and for that matter the entire team in Marion, had no way of knowing the truth about what was really wrong with Duane Barry, because someone had gone to great lengths to disguise it.

"You've got to get him out of there," she ordered, as in her email a message from Frohike popped up. She clicked it open to find an attachment to it, a file with 3-D images of Barry's brain. She swallowed hard against the fear that rose in her throat as the images confirmed what she already knew..

"Well, they're working on it," Krycek tried to assure her reasonably. But Scully was in no mood for platitudes, reasonable or not.

"No, you've got to get him out of there now or he's going to be killed!" She stared in fascination at the bullet wound that entered through one frontal lobe of Barry's brain, and exited through the other.

"How can you be sure?"

Why was it Krycek needed her to convince him, she wondered angrily, resisting the urge to bite the younger agents head off. "Because Duane Barry is not what Mulder thinks he is. Look, who's in charge on the ground there?"

"Agent Kazdin, but she's busy with Mulder at the moment."

"Never mind I'll fly down there. I'll catch a flight down to Roanoke and will be there within two hours."

"Agent Scully, I don't know if that's necessary."

"How much medical training do you have, Agent Krycek," she retorted, already turning off her television and grabbing her things. "This man suffers from a rare condition brought on by an accident. He has no concept of right or wrong now, no moral center what so ever. He will lie, create delusions, perhaps even believe those delusions. But they aren't real." And Mulder would have no way of knowing that.

Krycek was silent on his end of the line for a long moment. "Look, I can have Kazdin call you about this, you don't need to…"

"Too late." She clicked off her computer. "I'll see you in a couple of hours, Krycek."

"Scully, listen," he began, but she cut him off, clicking the phone into it's cradle and staring at the 3D image on the screen in front of her.

"Mulder, just what the hell have you gotten yourself into this time," she frowned, at the 3D image, as frightening thoughts of Mulder trying to reason with Duane Barry's damaged brain floated through her mind. Without a word, she gathered the paperwork Frohike had sent her, her purse, and her keys and hurried out of the door.


	26. Doing the Right Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully comforts Mulder, worried that he did the wrong thing.

The sound of breaking glass shattered over her headphone. Scully's teeth cut through the tender skin on her bottom lip, her eyes locking with Lucy Kazdin's for a long, breathless moment. There was silence on the other end. Not even the sound of Mulder's low monotone sounded over the hiss of static. Nothing that clued either of them in on just what had happened. Had the sniper bullet been successful? Was Duane Barry down or had something gone horribly wrong. Was Mulder even alive?

"Target down, move in!" A distant, perfunctory voice sounded over the line, breaking the silence finally as on the monitor in front of them SWAT teams in heavy gear ran across the street under the bright lights, crouched low to the ground for fear of some sort of return fire. Nothing came. Scully stared at the screen, one headphone pressed so hard to her ear that the lobe was going numb. She waited for some sign, some indication Mulder was all right. Finally, from inside the door, there was a rustling beyond the frame, shattered glass glittering like white snow dust just inside the floor. Mulder stumbled to the SWAT Team and waved them inside, as Scully released her pent up breath, ripping the headphones off.

"I'm going out there." she told Kazdin, as the other woman stared at her wide-eyed, trying to call after her. Scully ignored her as she rushed through the office, nearly bowling over Krycek as he stood by the doorway, watching the proceedings from one of the outside facing windows.

"Scully, where are you..." 

She brushed past him, ignoring Mulder's partner in her haste to get to him. "Barry's down, Mulder's alive," she replied, as Krycek reached fingers around her elbow, momentarily stopping her.

"Hey, wait, let the SWAT team do its job." Krycek frowned. "Look, Mulder's a big boy, he can take care of himself."

"Yeah. Is that what you thought when you wouldn't even forward me to Kazdin with the information on Barry and his psychosis," she snapped, yanking her arm forcibly out of Krycek's strong grip. "What you did was irresponsible, Krycek. More than that, Mulder could have been hurt without that information today."

She might as well have slapped him. He looked stung and angry, pulling away with narrowed eyes. "Look, you aren't his partner anymore. You don't have to keep running his errands."

His errands? Scully's eyes widened in disbelief at the other man. Mulder had called her on a hunch, to be better informed and as it turned out his hunch was correct. She had discovered information no one else, not even Kazdin knew, information that could have led to hostage deaths, if not Bureau deaths. And Krycek was acting as if Scully had simply been doing Mulder's dirty job for him, perfunctory duties that had no real place in the greater scheme of Mulder's work. How little Krycek knew herself or Mulder. "I thought you understood Agent Mulder. I guess I was wrong."

She spun on the other man, rushing out of the door, and out to the street, where the SWAT team was giving an all clear sign to the anxiously waiting paramedics. They rushed into the small office, gurney in their wake as Mulder stumbled out of the way, wearing a borrowed EMT shirt, and a worn, guilty look on his tired, angular face. He looked as if he had betrayed his best friend. She worried he felt that he had done just that.

"Mulder!" She dashed across the street to him, looking him up and down for cuts, bruises, signs of some sort of damage. Other than the wounded look in his eyes he showed no signs of physical damage. He tried to smile at her weakly as he popped an earpiece out, waggling it in front of her as she stopped.

"Didn't expect you to fly down from DC for little, old me," he quipped, though his gratefulness was written all over his face.

She smiled briefly at him, relieved that he was fine physically, if not emotionally. "Mulder, Duane Barry was a very sick man." She glanced towards the door where the paramedics were working frantically on the body of the fallen man. "He had brain damage to his frontal lobes, an accident years ago when he was still with the FBI. Gunshot clean through them both, cutting communication between the two."

"Like Phineas Gage?" Mulder's shoulders slumped. Of course he'd know of Phineas Gage, he had studied psychology. "Scully, he described all of the classic symptoms of alien abduction, down to the smallest detail."

She reached her fingers for his arm, where it lay bare beneath the short sleeves of the EMT shirt, squeezing reassuringly. "I know, Mulder. I can't explain how. Perhaps he followed abductions himself, much like you do, and his psychosis built it up in his mind. The damage in his brain is such he likely didn't know what was real and what wasn't. Maybe it never occurred to him that any of it was fake."

"He knew about the children they took, like Samantha." His voice was thready and ragged as he watched the paramedics worked. "He said they did horrible tests."

"Mulder, he made that up. He doesn't know what happened to your sister." Scully had to believe that. All the evidence up to this point showed her nothing less than that Barry was a sick, sad, unfortunate man. To have believed anything else, she might not be speaking to Mulder right at that second.

The paramedics began ordering people to move, as out of the shattered door the carefully maneuvered the stretcher that carried the wounded Duane Barry, looking so much less threatening than he had in the photographs that the news had posted on the television. There he had been a menacing figure, with frightening eyes and a darkened scowl. As the paramedics wheeled him past herself and Mulder, he looked like nothing more than a broken, crumpled doll, an oxygen mask wrapped around his grimacing face, his shirt torn open where the EMT team had worked to stop the bleeding from the precisely aimed bullet of the sniper.

Mulder moved to watch Barry being loaded carefully into the back of the ambulance, as men began squawking on hand-held radios, warning the hospital ahead of their arrival. She didn't need to speak to him or even to look at him to see the guilt written there. The conflict broadcasted off of him as loudly as the men on their radios, and she longed to say something to reassure him that he was not wrong in his decision, that Duane Barry was not the man that he still suspected that he was.

"You okay, Mulder?"

"Yeah." Scully highly doubted that was the truth. She waited as he fidgeted besides her, wincing as the doors closed in front of Barry. "It's just that I believed him."

Scully knew that. She knew he wanted to believe him so bad, even now, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. "Sometimes when you want to believe so badly, you end up looking too hard."

"Maybe." Mulder wasn't convinced. "The hostages all right?"

"They will be," Scully assured him. "I'm more worried about you."

"I think I will be too." He sighed heavily, watching the blazing lights of the ambulance swirl into the night, the sound of sirens howling all around them.


	27. What Does It Mean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder has evidence he doesn't know what to do with.

Mulder didn't say a word as he walked into her offices in Quantico. Her bright, sympathetic smile didn't even elicit a flicker of his eyes as he sat down heavily into the chair by her desk and pulled out of his pocket a single, glass phial with a lump of metal in it, small, clinking against the fragile sides with a sharp sound. She frowned at it as it sat on the desk between them, nearly spotlighted by her desk lamp on the dark wood.

"What is it?" Her right thumb and forefinger wrapping around the glass cylinder, pinching it so she could examine the contents under the meager light of her office.

"They found that in Duane Barry's nasal cavity." Mulder's monotone was heavy and slow as he leaned back into the chair, his long legs banging against her desk. "They also found others. In his gums, in his abdomen." Mulder pointed briefly to each of those areas on his own body. "Kazdin called me down to Marion, told me about it. He wasn't lying, Scully. He didn't make it up."

Her eyes flew to his. She had a feeling this was coming. She should be irritated that Mulder, a psychologist, would so completely ignore all of the symptoms for the condition that Barry obviously suffered from. No matter what he hoped to hear, it bothered her that Mulder lost his objectivity the minute any case involved alien abduction. "This could be just a piece of shrapnel. Duane Barry did a tour of duty in Vietnam."

"It was right where he said it would be, Scully," Mulder insisted, eyes flashing. "Along with the ones in his gums and sinus."

She frowned, staring at the lump of silver metal in the glass container again. "And you think that this was implanted?"

"Well, if it was, that would mean Duane Barry is telling the truth." Mulder regarded her questioningly. She knew what he was asking her to do. He wanted her to believe Barry's story as readily as he did, to back him up when he made his official explanation to Kazdin.

"Or some version of the truth." She hedged, unwilling to give Mulder an outright no. She had never been so sure that what Barry was doing was lying. People with his condition often didn't realize they were lying, or if they did it didn't make any sort of moral impact on them. It was quite possible that Barry had convinced himself so much of the nature of his supposed alien abductions, he believed them to be true.

Mulder rubbed his eyes in obvious frustration, before looking at her. He wanted her to just back him up, but he also knew he would never get her to agree to it willingly. He wouldn't let this go any more than she would. She shook the glass tube and nodded in partial conciliation. "Look, I'll take this down to ballistics. They can have this cleared up in a second." The ballistics lab was just downstairs, it would be nothing to run down there and have them look at the metal under their microscopes. At least they could give her insight into what the metal was, and whether it really was shrapnel or something else, more man made.

"Thank you," Mulder murmured, rising slowly as his grave face regarded the piece of metal. "I'll give you a call in the morning. See what's up with it."

"Right." Scully set it firmly on the desk, watching Mulder as he slumped towards the door, looking more conflicted and guilty, if possible, than he did the day before. "Mulder," she called to him before he could get away.

He turned to her, his green eyes evasive.

"If this turns out to be an implant, you realize you have no way of connecting it back to aliens or conspiracies. You only have a suspicious looking implant, with no rhyme or reason."

"Yeah," Mulder acknowledged. "But it may be enough to open the X-files with. Enough to have Skinner allow it."

She pursed her lips briefly, trying to decide how to phrase her next words without opening wounds. "It also doesn't mean that Barry knows anything more about your sister and what happened to her. Remember, Mulder, his words can only be taken at face value."

"You keep reminding me of that like I have forgotten my own psychology training. You aren't the only one who has a premium on knowledge concerning mental medical conditions."

"I know that." Finally, some reaction that wasn't guilt, even if it was unreasonable anger directed at her. "But I need you to remember that as well. You were so willing to believe Barry, despite all of your better judgment, despite all of your FBI training and before we even know the full explanation of it, you are wanting to assume that this is the pathway to your missing sister."

"Lies are based on truths, Scully. It was enough to get Kazdin to believe. She was the one who found them."

"That's good investigative work, Mulder, not belief. I just worry, that's all." She frowned down at the metallic blob, lying between them on her desk. "All I'm saying is that I need you to remember your objectivity in this case. I need you to remember that we still have to handle this as what it is, an investigation. And not to go at this because of your over-developed sense of guilt, or your need to be right about something." She was perhaps being overly harsh. She recognized that, but she wanted desperately for Mulder to understand. He said nothing, nodding his head silently and working his jaw. She couldn't tell if he was angry at her words, or simply to tired and overwrought emotionally from the last few days to care.

"Anyway, I'll go to ballistics before I leave or the night. I'll have an answer for you in the morning. Go home, get some sleep."

"Right," he breathed, somewhat sarcastically, a ghost of a smile on face. "Don't stay too late."

"I won't." Scully waved him off, waiting till he left and she heard his footsteps down the hallway before picking up the metal again and gazing at it. It looked like nothing more than slag metal, fragmented from an explosion, perhaps shrapnel from a land mine. But then it had been found in the exact spots that Barry had mentioned, areas so widespread and far apart, they almost would have to be deliberately placed there. No mine explosion would leave so few bits in such a precise spacing.

She sighed, rubbing the spot between her eyes with her forefinger. She needed ice cream, and a hot bath, and a good book tonight. She needed not to think about Duane Barry, aliens, or Mulder nearly getting killed. Tonight, she would turn in early and worry about this all again tomorrow.


	28. The Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully's world is turned upside down.

In her pocket she could hear the metal rattling, with ever step she took it clattered as loudly as if she had been holding it up to her ear and shaking it. Scully fought the urge to grab it out and throw it in her purse or perhaps in the nearest trash can, and instead dug around it to her keys in her pocket, yawning and sighing as she pushed open her apartment door and made a bee line to the kitchen. The plastic bag rustled as she took out the vanilla fudge ripple ice cream, stowing it in the freezer before it could melt any further and the jar of pickles she had purchased for no real reason outside of the fact that pickles sounded good to her at the moment. Those she placed in her cupboard, as she moved about her kitchen, restless, each step causing the metal to chink again in her pocket.

Clink, rattle, and clink.

Sighing, she pulled out the offending piece of metal, staring at it much as she had stared months ago at the strange, alien virus she and Ann Carpenter had found in the Purity Control sample. The virus that someone had killed the woman and her family over, she remembered, as she stared at the metal in the light of her kitchen. Someone had engineered that virus for a purpose, much as someone had engineered whatever this piece of metal found in Duane Berry. Had it really been, as he had said, an alien abduction? Did strange, green men come and take him away and place bits of metal all over his body? Or had it been something far more sinister. Was Barry, unwittingly, a part of some sort of test experiment, much like Augustus Cole? So many questions, so many pieces and no way of fitting them all together neatly. It agitated her. As a scientist these answers should be something she could somehow grasp but they answers kept slipping through her fingers.

Crossing to her desk, she grabbed her cordless phone, dialing the second number she had on speed dial after her mother - Mulder's. She waited, pacing her living room, turning on the light by her large, bay window, and waiting for either Mulder or his machine to pick up. Unsurprisingly, it was Mulder's machine. It clicked over, with the tinny, hollow sound of Mulder's recorded, flat voice. "Hello, this is Fox Mulder. Leave a message please." The machine beeped loudly into her ear.

"Mulder it's me." She stared at the implant in its phial, holding it up to the light of the lamp. "I just had something incredibly strange happen. This piece of metal they took out of Duane Barry? It has some kind of code on it." She squinted at the metal but could no more see the number on it now than she could earlier.

"I ran it through a scanner and some kind of serial number came up." She stopped her pacing, pausing to hold the metal even closer up to her eye. "What the hell is this thing? It's almost as if…" She stopped, frowning at it. "It's almost as if somebody was using it to catalogue him."

Outside her living room window there was a loud thump on the wall and a rustling of the bushes. Out of nowhere, a summer storm decided to erupt, lighting the window ominously. She frowned out of the window, surprised by such a loud noise in her usually quiet building. It could be nothing, she theorized, as rain began to patter outside. Probably just a gust of wind with the coming storm, or perhaps it was a stray cat seeking shelter from the rain. Curious, she moved towards the window, pulling up on the blinds to peek outside and see what was causing the noise.

Duane Barry's glassy eyes met hers as she gasped, trying frantically to back up as fast as she could.

Without thought he crashed through the pained glass of the window, grabbing for her as she tried to move back, but stumbled over her own shoes, bumping into her own furniture. The phone fell out of her grasp as she tumbled to the ground. Barry climbed through the window despite the jagged edges of clear windowpane, beaded with the rain that sprinkled into the now open space. Scully tried to scramble back to her feet, but Barry was on top of her, pinning her down as his bloodied hand grabbed for her roughly.

"Come on, lady," he insisted, roughly jerking her ankles upwards. She pulled against him, kicking outwards with her high-heeled shoes, trying to pull herself to the cordless phone that still lay on the carpet, that was still connected to Mulder's machine.

"Mulder!" She screamed, hoping against hope he was in his apartment, and that he was just walking in his door, that he was within moments of hearing this and running to her rescue.

"Come on," Barry insisted savagely, yanking her upright off the carpet by her shoulders, even as she tried claw and yank away from him, trying to lunge for her own front door.

"I need your help, Mulder! Mulder!" Her screams went unanswered. She tumbled again, crawling for the table where her service weapon lay, but he grabbed her wrists, the force of it smashing the glass of the table, and bruising the bone painfully as she cried out, tears forming instantly against the sharp ache.

"I need your help," she sobbed towards the phone. "Mulder!"

Barry's foot came down on her only line to the outside world, crushing it violently as she stared up at him. He held her own gun trained on her, as she lay on her own floor, face down, blood streaming from a cut on her hands, glass scattered like teardrops across her pristine carpet.

"You have to come with me," Barry insisted in a cold, wild voice. "You have to come with me so they don't take me."

Scully lay so still on the carpet, the world felt as if it stopped. She panted with effort, staring up the muzzle of her own gun, tears unbidden falling down the sides of her sweat covered face. Barry neither moved nor twitched, he only watched her, pleadingly.

"Duane?" Scully's voice was rough and low as she fought to try and keep it steady in the face of her gun. "Duane, you are a very sick man." She swallowed. "I'm a doctor, I can help you."

"Shut up!" He bellowed angrily, shoving the gun further into her face as he knelt down on the floor beside her. He was still wearing the hospital gown he no doubt had on in the Richmond facility he was at, his legs bare as he knelt down on the glass-scattered carpet, heedless as it cut into the skin of his knees. "Duane Barry's had enough of doctors. Doctors are the ones that started all of this. They were the ones who wouldn't believe me, who said I was crazy. They took my wife, my kids, and they did nothing, nothing to help me." He ground his teeth together as rainwater streamed from his wet hair and clothes, soaking the fibers of her carpet. His finger didn't loosen from the gun.

"I'm sorry about that, Duane," Scully whispered, trying to keep calm, trying to stay focused, trying to remember all of her lessons from the Academy and from her father. Keep calm in the face of something dangerous, don't loose your head, stay steady, and stay centered.

"How can you be sorry? You don't know Duane Barry." The gun wavered ever so slightly in her face. "You don't know what they took from me, all the things they did to me, the things they put in me."

"Yes I do, Duane." Somewhere on the floor was the now missing bit of metal. "I know they put those implants in you. I know what they are."

"I know," he replied back, almost apologetically. "They told me you had it, lady. It's why I need to take you."

Scully felt her throat constrict painfully around a scream. "What do you mean?"

"I got to take you with me, to the mountain to the stars. You are going to be my replacement."

All thoughts of focus and calm went out the window then as she shook her head violently from side to side. "No, no Duane. Don't do this. I'm an FBI Agent. You were FBI once, you know what will happen."

"Yeah," he nodded vaguely as he began looking around the room then. "I do know what they do. And Duane Barry, he can outfox them." He stood, moving towards her curtains, pulling at the ties that held back the fabric, yanking them from out of the walls. "I got to take you out of here, to the mountain to the stars. They'll come for you, and they'll take you instead of me. That's the agreement they had with Duane Barry."

"Who has?" Scully's voice quavered dangerously as he approached on bare feet, walking carefully over the scattered glass around her. Her eyes never left the ties in his hands.

"Man who woke me up. He was the one who told me to find you, told me to follow the implant. And here you are." His voice was soft and delighted as he set down her gun, far-to-far away for her to try and scramble to get it. He moved carefully over to where she lay, still on her stomach, roughly grabbing each of her hands and pulling on the injured one, uncaring to her yelps of pain. He tied her wrists together in one hard knot behind her back, then reached for her hair, pulling her head back despite her crying and protesting. He roughly pulled the other fabric tie from the curtains around her mouth, forcing it between her lips and pulling it tight against the corners as he tied it behind her head. It tangled with her red hair painfull and she tried to wiggle her head some to free it.

"Now, Duane Barry needs you to be quiet as I take you out of here, you hear?" His voice was almost gentle as he spoke, as if he was reasoning with a child. "You and me are going for a ride. Where's your car key?"

Scully didn't answer him. She had taken her keys out, of course, left them on the counter when she had put away her groceries. Unconsciously, her eyes flew to the kitchen. Duane Barry's eyes followed. Silently he smiled, as he kept her gun trained on her, striding over quickly to the counter top and snagging the metallic ring with a jingling noise. He chuckled as he studied them and noticed the plastic fob with the word Ford on it.

"Remote lock, how nice. Makes it easy for Duane to find your car, doesn't it?" He chuckled as he gleefully moved towards the window and the parking area outside, leaving bloodied footprints across her carpet as he went. He stood there, pressing the fob, and waiting to see the tell tale flashing lights and the sound of her car beeping. Sure enough, Scully could hear in the distance the sound of her vehicle being unlocked.

"Duane Barry's got to take your car. You see they're already looking for the other one I borrowed. And it's all out of gas." He turned to her, his face grave and serious. "Now, be quiet, before your neighbors call the police."

He picked up her weapon where it sat on the floor. "Don't want to have to use this. They don't like it when people are hurt, 'cause they only have to fix you. Now be good, and Duane will get you there in one piece.

Scully could only stare at him, her tear-filled eyes frightened as he bent over to scoop her up, carrying her nearly effortlessly to the window. She could kick and fight him, she wanted to, but his grip on her slight frame was so tight it left bruises in her tender skin. She was helpless, for the first time in her adult life, totally and completely helpless to the whims of someone else, someone who cared little about her pain and her fear. Her words to Lucy Kazdin the day before haunted her. Duane Berry had no moral center. He didn't even understand what he was doing was wrong.

Scully's heart beat frantically in her chest as carefully, Barry climbed back out the window, miraculously avoiding the shards of razor sharp glass, neither cutting himself or her as he did it. Once out into the pounding rain of the thunderstorm, Scully felt her bindings soak tightly against her skin as her hair and clothing became plastered to her body. Barry made his way quickly across the concrete and grass, feet slapping in the mud as he hurried to her waiting sedan. One click of the fob, and she could hear the trunk pop open dully under the sound of rolling thunder.

"Duane's got to put you in here, ma'am. Can't have anyone looking in and wondering why I have an FBI agent tied up in her car, can I?" He tumbled her in, wet and disheveled as she knocked her head briefly on the lip of the trunk, grazing the skin slightly. She yelped and moaned, muffled by the gag in her mouth and tried, one last time now she was free to kick and fight again.

"No, lady!" Out of seemingly nowhere, Duane pulled out her gun again, holding it towards her face. "You want to live, you stay still, and you stay quiet. No one is stopping Duane Barry this time." He shook his head vehemently in the rain, water droplets covering her already wet face, causing her to wince backwards and wiggle away on the rough carpet of her trunk.

"You stay here, you stay quiet, and you be good." Barry waved her gun in her face one last time, before rearing back and grabbing for her the lid to slam down over her. Vainly, she tried to protest, screaming through the fabric in her mouth as the lid slammed firmly over her, like a casket, and she was left alone in the darkness with only the sound of the rain on her trunk. Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, she tried to repeat to herself, as she squirmed her fingers around the knot in the back, ignoring the screaming pain in her right wrist. Her fingers were nimble and were able to at least feel where the knot lay, but were unable to reach around it and try to work the twisted fabric free. Try as she might, she could not get proper purchase on it and her nails caught and tore in the wet fibers.

Damn it all, the thought, tears leaking out of her eyes as she twisted in the trunk. She hoped she could use the friction of the carpet to work the band imprisoning her hands off, rolling it past her wrists and hands. Perhaps she could have if the fabric had been dry, but wet as it was it only tightened it around her already abraded and bleeding skin. She was stuck, she realized. Stuck and unable to do anything, helpless, waiting on the whims of a madman and it was that thought that frightened her more than anything else in this situation. Barry did not think and reason the same way anyone else did. One couldn't appeal to his human side. He couldn't even feel or rationalize like that anymore. Mulder had tried and Barry had nearly killed him for his efforts.

Mulder, she thought frantically. Mulder would get home soon, he would hear that message, and he would come for her, look for her. He had promised, she remembered, the two of them, driving through the Washington forest together, his words of assurance that he would come for her, he wouldn't leave her behind. She wondered if he had heard the message already. Was he racing back from Virginia, across the river traffic to get to her house? Would he drive up then, find Duane Barry there, confront him, free her? Her hopes were dashed, as just at that moment she heard someone crawling into the driver's side of her car and the engine rumble to life. Instantly, the radio came on, some rock station she had listened to on her way home from Quantico that evening, something she hadn't even paid attention to.

She lifted one knee, using it to bang angrily against the back of the fabric seats, screaming despite the gag into the cabin, reminding her captor of her presence there. He heard her all right. He immediately turned up her radio so loud it was a wonder he could even think straight enough to drive. She stopped, realizing the effort was no good. Defeated, she slumped onto her stomach, lying as flat as she could, curled up uncomfortably in the trunk, as below her, the car began to move. Move towards the mountains, she realized as a sob tore itself from out of her throat, choking her on the gag as she finally gave into the hysterics she had denied herself all of this time. He was taking her towards the mountain to the stars.


	29. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is taken to Skyline Mountain.

How long had it been, she wondered, as she woke fitfully from what could only loosely be termed as a nap. Her exhaustion and fear had gotten the better of her and she had dozed, restless, the humming of the cars wheels along the miles of road lulling her into some sort of sleep. It hadn't been restorative, however. Her right wrist ached from where Barry had slammed it against her coffee table, her shoulders burned from being stuck in the position they had been in for so long, and she was sure she'd never get the taste of cotton out of her mouth. She was so thirsty the fabric stuck to her tongue. She tried to swallow, but her raw throat didn't seem to want to cooperate. 

Had they stopped once since he had pulled away from her apartment? Where were they? Barry had continuously mumbled something about mountains and stars. The mountains of Virginia and West Virginia weren't so far away from Washington DC, only a few hours drive, but which mountain was the one that took him to the stars? Would there be civilization there? He would have to stop sometime, for gas if nothing else. She had filled up on the way home last night, but even that wouldn't last forever. She wondered how Mulder and the investigation was going. Scully had no doubt that the FBI was pulling out full forces to find her. She was one of their own and they did not take a situation like that lightly in the least bit. Already she imagined there was a net out, branching across a three-to-four state area, looking for her car, for Duane Barry and for her. And then there would be Mulder, who took such threats to those he was close to so painfully personal.

She remembered that moment during the Barnett case, when his old boss, Reggie Purdue had been killed. There had been a darkness lurking there, something deeper than anger, something more dangerous than frustration. It had terrified her then, had worried her because it was a side of Mulder she had never seen, a side she didn't think she or anyone else could control if it was set loose. It was as if all the pain and loss from his sister through every person he had ever felt responsible for in his entire life had manifested itself in this aspect of Mulder that would call hellfire down on anyone who stood in his way. She prayed Skinner or Krycek could keep his temper in check long enough to get her home, to get her safe. Because if anyone could piece together the puzzle about where she was, it was Mulder, with his adductive reasoning and his intuitive understanding of minds just like Duane Barry's. She trusted he would find her; he would find her and would come for her. She just had to be patient.

Patience was in short supply at the moment. Her bladder screamed at her, she hadn't had a chance to use the restroom before she was taken. Her stomach rumbled with a lack of any real food in it. She ignored the blood matting her hair to her forehead, and the torn fingernails aching at her fingertips. She had already tried to undo the knots that tied her, and had realized that effort was useless at this point. In the cabin she could hear nothing, save for the incessant drone of the radio, blaring through the back seat, so loud even she could hear it in the trunk. Scully had given up trying to rage over the noise, but the press of it against her ears, along with her thirst and fear, was creating a throbbing in her head. 

She squeezed her swollen eyes shut, silently murmuring the Hail Mary, focusing her thoughts on the gold cross that hung around her neck. The charm had been a gift from her mother, fifteen Christmases ago. She and Melissa had both received one that year. The two girls, old enough to know better, but mischievous enough to not care, had snuck down to the tree on Christmas Eve, snooping at the presents each of them had received. When caught by Maggie, she had allowed each of them to open one present apiece, flat boxes that had contained the matching, golden crosses that were so similar to the one that Maggie herself wore regularly. It had been a gift of faith and love from their mother who remained a devoted member of the Church despite all of the trials life threw at her. 

Melissa hardly ever wore the charm anymore. She had given up on Catholicism and Christianity in general years ago. Yet Scully knew for a fact she kept the tiny necklace safely tucked away, a treasured heirloom from a mother who had never criticized Melissa for her own spiritual journey. Scully wore her own necklace more often than not, especially since her father's death, more because it was a physical reminder of the family that she felt was starting to slip away from her since Ahab's demise. She could say, perhaps nominally, she was faithful. Still, she hadn't been to church in years and couldn't remember the last time she had gone to confession or taken communion. Funny how those things seemed so important in moments like this.

Over the blare of her own radio in the cabin, Scully heard a particular, familiar squawking sound. Her heart began pounding loudly in her ears as the car began to slow suddenly. She could feel the tires veer to the side of the road, gravel there crunching loudly beneath the tires. The car finally came to a stop, as the brakes kicked in. Behind them she could hear the sound of another car pulling up, stopping as well.

Scully held her breath, waiting, praying this was some sort of help, some sort of rescue for her. She strained her ears, listening for the sound of someone's voice, and heard heavy, booted footsteps on the pavement outside of the car. They stopped, just by the driver's side window, as a voice began speaking. Not Barry's. She couldn't hear what was being said, the radio was far too loud, but the voice was insistent. Eventually, the radio was turned down, the sound dampening, enough so that Scully could hear the voices as they spoke.

"Okay." Barry was whining in acquiescence. "But could you just give me the ticket now so I can go? I got to be someplace?"

The new comer didn't seem impressed. "Where?" He was suspicious, and rightly so. Scully knew he was a state patrolman. She turned to get a better angle by which to hit the top of the trunk, to catch the man's attention. Wiggling in the dark, she tried to position her legs so that she could better kick the trunk lid.

"I'm not sure," Barry replied vaguely. "But they'll tell me when I get there."

There was a quiet pause and Scully prayed the patrol officer didn't buy that story as she squirmed to better hit the trunk, turning so her knees would bang against the fiberglass. Before she could even move, the patrolman spoke, in a voice that bespoke warning and danger.

"Sir, put your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them." Scully felt thrilled as the man's tone became deadly serious. She could imagine him standing there, gun trained on Barry. Perhaps he was on the look out for her car. Perhaps that's why he had stopped them.

"You don't understand!" Barry half sobbed. "They're waiting for me. I…I can't be late."

"Put your hands up and exit the vehicle!" The patrolman insisted, his boots scraping on pavement as he backed away.

"No, I got to keep moving. Please!" He sounded truly grieved by this situation, perhaps for the first time since he had grabbed her from her apartment. "For your own sake, don't stop Duane Barry."

"Sir, put your hand's up!" The patrolman was firm. Now was Scully's chance. She began kicking the trunk and screaming against the gag in her mouth, making as much noise as she could to draw the patrolman's attention. Hopefully he would be able to force Barry to open the drunk and allow her to get out. But even as she thought her prayers were about to be answered, the sounds of a scuffle broke and a single shot rang through the stillness outside, causing Scully to freeze where she was. Her stomach lurching sickeningly inside her. She wondered just who had gotten shot, her rescuer or her abductor. She lay deathly still, holding her breath, as footsteps came around the back of the car. The trunk popped open, the a flood of bright light from a gray, cloudy sky above framed Duane Barry as he stood over her, glaring. Behind his head, tall, majestic pine trees sprouted like some diabolical aurora.

"Lady, you shouldn't have made all that fuss. Now you want to see what Duane Barry's done?" His voice was could as he loomed over her, eyes brewing like thunder clouds. "I killed an innocent man because of you. There was no reason he had to die. He was just doing his job. I told you to be quiet and look what you went and did."

Scully stared up at him, lifting her head to try and see out, to see if she could find the dead body. But it wasn't there. It must be still lying there, in the middle of the road, crumpled helplessly on the wet pavement. Barry shook his head as he stared down at her and roughly pushed her back down inside.

"You keep your mouth shut from now on, till I tell you otherwise. Else, Duane Barry might have to teach you a lesson you won't like much." He slammed the trunk lid back down on her, even as she screamed and cried and tried to bang against it. It was little use. The moment he got back in the car, the radio turned up again and he pulled her vehicle back onto the road.

She yelled over the sound of her radio till her throat was raw and her head rang with the muffled noise of her own shrieking. How long she screamed, an hour, longer, she didn't know. When she stopped, it was out of pure exhaustion and lack of ability to even produce noise out of her stripped and swollen vocal chords. In the darkness and the silence she laid, waiting for the car to finally stop.

She drifted again, the heat inside the car lulling her to another exhausted sleep. She vaguely dreamed then, more images than anything substantive. Visions of her father returning to port in San Diego, swooping down to grab her up and swing her around. Watching her brother Bill play football in high school. She and Melissa spying discreetly from another room as Charlie sat nervously with his first, real girlfriend in her parents front room in Baltimore. There was her own first kiss when she was twelve. Her first teenaged love-of-her-life, Marcus and the one and only time she had ever slept with him, two weeks after her high school graduation, a fervid affair in her own bedroom one afternoon while her mother was out and Melissa was keeping a look out, a secret shared between sisters. Her years at the University of Maryland, with Ellen and Sarah and their gang of girls and the hectic, sleepless days and nights at Stanford, where she had seen her first dead body, her first surgery, had saved her first life. It had broken her father's heart to hear she had enrolled at the Academy. He had wanted her to become a doctor, a nice, safe job, one where the bad guy wouldn't shoot her, grab her, kidnap her. But she had her brains and her skills, and she had Mulder, who always looked out for her, no matter what. Besides, she was a pathologist, how much trouble could she possibly get involved in?

When the car finally did stop, she hardly noticed. She still lay half-awake, half dreaming as the tires crunched on granite gravel and she only stirred when the trunk was finally popped open, the fading light of twilight made the sky pearly gray. Just as she roused herself to wakefulness, Duane Barry grabbed her roughly, pulling her foreword.

"Duane Barry is awful sorry about all of this, ma'am." He murmured regretfully, as his fingers fumbled for the back of her head and the knot tied there. "I know it's an awful thing to do, you didn't ask for this. But they made me do it. You see, I don't want to go back there, not again, not ever again. And they said I didn't have to, if I brought you instead."

Scully flinched as his fingers pulled and tugged at the strands of hair caught in the fabric, as suddenly the friction pulling at the corners of her aching jaws eased, and for the first time in hours she was able to move her mouth properly, to work her tongue around without the impediment of fabric. Saliva began working itself up as she rolled her lower jaw around, trying to loosen it from eternity of being in one position, groaning as her chapped, bleeding lips cracked and ached.

"Duane, why are you doing this?" She moaned as he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her from the trunk, her numb, swollen feet trailing uselessly behind the rest of her body, her shoes having come off in the trunk hours ago. She felt blood rush back into her appendages, as the numbness turned to a prickling sensation running all up and down her legs. He set her down on the gravel that the car sat on, as she tried to blink and look around to where they were.

"What is this place?" She whispered, feeling the thinness of the air in her lungs, and the coolness to the air. All around the clearing they found themselves in were tall timber pines, rustling in the late summer breeze. Above her the first stars of evening were beginning to come out.

"It's the mountain to the stars," Barry said simply, pulling at the tie around her wrists, struggling with the knot that she had made tighter with her pulling. "This is where they come…the aliens."

"I don't believe in aliens," she rasped, turning to look up at him.

"Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter. They're coming for you anyway." He managed to yank the fabric off, freeing her arms finally as they ached painfully in their joints. She gasped and bit back tears as she tried to pull them forward, to rotate them, as the click of her own gun in her ear brought her to a standstill.

"I need you to get up now and come with me." He murmured slowly, glancing at her feet. "You think you can walk?"

"I don't know," she replied flatly, squelching the tremor of fear in her voice.

"Try getting up." He nudged the gun upwards, indicating she should stand. It took some effort on her part, her right wrist was swollen and purple, and it didn't want to support her still body on the sharp, pointy gravel as her still rubbery legs tried to find purchase. The only thing between her still sensitive feet and the rock below were the stockings she had worn the day before, and those caught and tore on the gravel as she finally managed to stand up right.

"Come on." Barry grabbed her elbow, almost solicitously, and helped her across the gravel, never lowering her gun. Once on the grass he pushed her in front of him, jerking her gun into the open clearing in front of them. It looked to be the head of some sort of ski trail, leading to a flat, treeless expanse down the side of the mountain, to the side was a wooden shed that looked as if it served as the terminus point for a tram service up the mountain for snow loving, nature seekers. Nearby was the gondola point for the skiers who frequented the slopes in the winter.

"Why did we come here?" She stumbled forward on the soft grass. 

"You'll see," Barry insisted, prodding her foreword with the muzzle of her gun poking into the small of her back. "They'll be here very soon."

Scully glanced around herself, back towards the road, towards the gravel path her car was parked on. She strained her ears to hear sounds of engines tearing up the mountainside, but that wasn't the sound that she heard in the stillness of the twilight. It wasn't a car engine, but a loud, mechanical straining from the shed to one side, the one where the tram ran.

Duane Barry heard it too. He turned, cocked his head, and then frowned over at the tram point. His face twitched in agitation as he began to shake his head and whisper. "No, no, no, no, no, they can't do this, they can't…"

Scully wanted to break and run then for the shed, but her legs refused to cooperate with her, no matter how hard she willed them. Before she could even make a step, Barry roughly grabbed her elbow and drug her to the clearing, chanting "no, no, no" repeatedly under his breath.

"Let me go, Duane. You know that is them." Scully had a feeling she knew exactly who was coming up the tram. Mulder would try something that dangerous and stupid if he knew she was up there. She wanted to scream out to him, but Barry waved the gun by her ear, reminding her of its presence.

"Just shut up!"He pushed her roughly to her knees in the middle of the grass and clover. She grunted as the impact jarred her and waited as he stood behind her, muttering softly to himself, wondering where "they" were, and "they" said that "they" would be there. Who were "they", she wondered desperately, and did she have any hope of letting Mulder know where she was?

The trees around her began to sway ominously. Wind whipped suddenly around her, stirring up the grass in which she knelt, and blowing dust and debris into her already swollen eyes. A bright light, white hot and scintillating cut into her vision as she threw hands up to shield herself. Behind her Duane Barry moaned and screamed and scuttled backwards from her, gibbering and crying as he went. She could run now. She could be free. She wanted to push herself off her aching knees and to run towards the shed where she knew Mulder was. She wanted to scream for him to find her. But she couldn't. The white light was all encompassing, surrounding her, pinning her in place as she knelt there, waiting for…what?

In the distance she thought she could hear her name, muffled against the sounds of the light. Strange, light making sound, she mused, as she looked over her shoulder to see just what the commotion was. Barry crouched on the ground, staring at her, eyes wide with very old terror, mumbling something…an apology perhaps? She couldn't be sure. In the distance, by the car, she could see a figure moving towards it. No doubt in her mind who that was. Too late, she thought, as she tried to scream out his name, and found she couldn't.

Her last thought as darkness overtook her was that she always knew Mulder would come for her. She was sorry he didn't come fast enough.


	30. No Such Thing As Aliens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully overhears a peculiar conversation.

Everything hurt.

Every fiber in every muscle, every tendon, and every cell ached. It hurt to breath, it hurt to think, opening her eyes hurt. Her skin vibrated with pain, even the follicles of her hair. She wanted to retch with it, but couldn't seem to manage it. She wasn't sure why. There were faint images, now and again; white rooms, bright lights, machines, strange faces. She couldn't recognize the shadowy figures in her vision. They were strange, dark shapes, their heads misshapen, their bodies cloaked in shadow. For half-a-hysterical moment she thought perhaps they were aliens, the ones Mulder always talked about. But there were no aliens. She knew that. Her rational mind laughed at her, clung to that certainty as everything else real and familiar to her slid away.

There were moments she thought she had lucidity. When she was in pain, lying there, crying for someone, her mother, her sister, her father, there was a voice there, warm and soothing. The voice said she was Penny and she would wipe her hot face from time to time with something cool and reassure her she'd be all right. It was always hard for those who were "new". Scully wasn't sure what "new" was supposed to mean. She wasn't new, she was thirty-years-old, a doctor, a FBI agent. She tried telling Penny this. She seemed to understand, but Penny did nothing about it. She would only smile sympathetically and pat Scully's bandaged hand. How did it become bandaged? She didn't remember hurting herself. The last thing she remembered was the piece of metal Mulder had given her from Duane Barry's body, the metal Mulder said was an alien implant. Not that there were such things as aliens, her rational thought reminded her.

There were others she sometimes thought she saw, other women just like her, in medical scrubs like she wore for autopsies. Was she back at Quantico? Perhaps she was in her class for the day, teaching her pathology students. They wore the scrubs, the FBI recruits did not, and they barely stayed awake for her classes. Mrs. Spooky they called her, when they thought she couldn't hear. And she didn't mind anymore, really. Because she promised to help Mulder with his work, except she hasn't heard from Mulder in so long? Why is that? He usually calls everyday, even if its for something silly, like watching his Knicks play. But the Knicks aren't playing now. It's the Yankees, basketball season ended months ago. How long as she been gone?

"She's been out of it for so long." That is Penny and she sounds frightened. Scully wondered if she should be worried if Penny is frightened. Calm, steady Penny, she's never frightened.

"I don't know." That is the one they call Cassandra. Scully liked Cassandra. She was older than the other ladies, closer in age to Scully's mother. She misses her mother. She wonders when she can see her again - if she can see her again. She cries thinking about it.

"Shhh, Dana, don't cry." Penny tried to reassure her, wiping at Scully's eyes. "You'll be home soon. I know it."

"I don't think they are doing to her what they have done to the others." Cassandra was thoughtful. Just what have they done to her? Why is she so different? Why does she hurt so much? When will she go home?

"I wonder why she is different?" Penny doesn't like the sound of that. Scully knows Penny has been very attached to her, almost protectively so. Penny's argued with the shadowy faces as they took her away.

"I heard her say something about being an FBI agent." Cassandra sounds pitying. "Perhaps she was brought here for a reason?"

Reason? She was brought here because of Duane Barry. He was told to bring her here…by whom? Scully never heard or perhaps Barry never said. She didn't know why. Did it have to do with Mulder? He almost found her that night, when the light took her. She had to call him, to let him know where she was. He would be worried. He always worried about those sorts of things. She tried to tell this to Penny and Cassandra, but they seemed confused, as if she were speaking gibberish.

"Mulder?" Cassandra sounded surprised.

"Who is that?" Penny didn't ask this of Scully. She asked it of Cassandra. Why didn't she ask her?

Cassandra was so quiet for several moments. Perhaps she knew a way of reaching Mulder. Scully hoped she did.

"I knew some Mulders, once, a long time ago. Friends of my ex-husband. They had a son and a daughter. The daughter disappeared. We never found her again." Cassandra sounded so sad. She had known Samantha? Scully wanted to ask her more but found the words too difficult to move from her brain to her mouth.

"She was a pretty thing, dark haired, beautiful. I was sad that she went away. I know her mother worried so. And her brother, he was a sweet boy. What was his name?"

 _Fox_ , Scully wanted to say, but couldn't quite manage. His name was Fox. Such a strange name for a child, but it seemed to suit her partner. Quick witted, sly, the uncanny ability to outsmart others, and he always made it out of the strangest situations. It was a pity he hated his name so very much.

"I suppose that the boy would be old enough now to be an FBI agent. Perhaps that would explain things?"

"Why is that?" Penny was curious.

Because he never stopped looking for his sister, Scully wanted to say. But instead Cassandra said it.

"I can't imagine he ever stopped searching for the girl. Maybe that's why she's here. Maybe that's why they are doing different things on her."

"It seems a pity. She's so young and pretty. Her family must be worried."

"Aren't all of our families worried?" Cassandra sighed so sadly, Scully felt sorry for the woman. "Perhaps not all of our families. Some of our families just think we are crazy."

"I'm sorry Cassandra."

Scully wanted to reach out and comfort the older woman, with the large eyes and the worn, weary face. But she couldn't seem to manage it before the shadow faces returned, and the machines, and the glaring white lights, and the room. And she cried, though Penny wasn't there to make it better. She wanted very much to go home, to return to her pretty apartment, to her coffee and still unfinished novel, to her soft sheets, and her warm bed. And she wanted to see her family, and to discuss everything and nothing at all with Mulder as she sat flipping channels late at night.

She tried to tell the shadow faces she wanted to go home. But no one seemed to listen.


	31. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is returned.

The scent was familiar, cloying and vaguely terrifying. She couldn't place it really, not at first. It smelled of tobacco and burning paper, of mysterious persons looking on as she desperately tried to defend herself against...what again? Why was everything so muddled and confused?

"How is she doing?" The voice was unfamiliar. It was low and gravely, a smoker's voice. It was perfunctory, even bored, but it didn't sound unfeeling. More curious.

"As well as could be expected, give the circumstances. Her immune system is reacting well, all things considered."

"Well enough to move?" There was the slightest of smacking sounds, as if someone was sucking on something.

"Move?" The other voice, masculine, like the first, was surprised by the idea. Moved to where, she wondered.

"Northeast Georgetown Medical is close to her home. I think that will do nicely. They have a very good internal medicine team there. Should give her a fighting chance." The man who sounded as if he smoked sounded thoughtful. "If not, at least she'll be returned to those who love and care for her."

"I didn't realize that was the plan, sir." The second voice sounded peevish, irritated by something. Perhaps he didn't want to send her home, to give her up. Scully wanted to plead with him to send her back, but it was too much effort even just opening her eyes.

"Plans change." The smoking man didn't seem concerned with the other man's annoyance. "Besides, I think she's been through enough. Don't you?"

The second man remained silent, and Scully wondered just what had she been through. For that matter, why was her immune system suppressed? Why did she have to go to the hospital? Had she been sick? If she were sick, how come her family didn't know where she was? Where was her mother? Where was Mulder? What had happened to her? She tried, very hard, to remember what was going on, but it all hurt too much to think. Her mind seemed to have a giant blank spot where memories should be, filled with smudges of white and vague wisps of discomfort. But for the life of her she couldn't remember why she was wherever she was, or who these people were, or why she wasn't at home in bed. She came home from the grocery store, she had put away her ice cream and pickles, she had called Mulder, and then….nothing.

Why was there nothing?

Her body was moving, though not of her own volition. Something was rolling beneath her, a gurney perhaps? She still couldn't open her eyes or even move, but she could hear, in a fashion. There were voices murmuring and the sound of some sort of vehicle opening up. She was lifted head first into somewhere, and then the doors slammed shut as sirens began to wail over her head. Perhaps she had been sick, she theorized as someone began hooking her up to machines. She could hear their electronic hum and beeping right by her ears. She hadn't been feeling so hot, she remembered, but she had chalked that up to being tired, to working long hours, to her worry over Mulder on the Duane Barry case. Nothing she would have theorized would lay her up with a serious illness. Perhaps there was an accident? She got home safe and sound. Maybe she had an accident on her way to work. Perhaps that was why she couldn't seem to remember anything. Maybe her accident was so severe that it removed her memories of how she got there, or even what had happened. But surely, someone would have seen her ID, her badge, would have been able to call someone. She wouldn't leave without those things? Better still, why was she so incredibly sleepy right now? And why did she hurt so much? Why was it so very cold in here?

It was a nurse who found her first. She knew it was a nurse because first she screamed, and then someone yelled at her for it, and from the ensuing argument she picked up the jist. Scully must have been sleeping, though she didn't remember ever falling asleep. She just appeared on the gurney they had brought her on. It was hard and uncomfortable and she still couldn't open her eyes. They felt taped shut, though to be honest she didn't really want to bother with the effort of opening them anyway. Her hands, her whole body was too heavy to move. And she felt hot, burning hot, the sort of hot that made your skin feel dry and parched and your tongue feel swollen and as rough as sandpaper. She could tell, because they began shoving tubes down her hot and aching throat, taping them down over her cracked lips. It seemed easier this way, just to let them do it. She was tired and it wasn't worth the effort of fighting over much.

She felt as if she were spiraling down and down, falling down a rabbit hole, until suddenly she could open her eyes and see. It was soft and cool, a forest filled with red and orange colored leaves, the color of her hair. She smiled. It was fall, her favorite season. She sat in a boat on a lake. Not a particularly familiar lake, but one she liked. It was one her father would enjoy, certainly. It was a setting Ahab would love. She smiled, and wished, not for the first time, that he was still with here to see such things. It occurred to Scully, briefly, that she should wonder why it was the boat was tied to the small, wooden dock, and why it was she was sitting there, silent and pale, wrapped in her heavy, wool coat. But she liked it here, liked watching the flights of ducks overhead, heading south, smelling the scent of wood smoke and moldering earth. There was something safe and comforting about this place.

She wondered if Mulder would like it? Mulder professed to be the outdoor type and she admitted he was always more into the cases out in the woods than she was. She tried to imagine Mulder sitting out in a boat like this, in flannel and a fishing pole and found she couldn't. The idea seemed so wrong/ She wanted to laugh, but for whatever reason she found she couldn't do that either. How very strange.

Scully blinked up into the pearly, gray sky. It was the sort of misty day that called for hot cider and a warm blanket. She looked at the dock again and was surprised to see her mother, standing there, tears streaming down her face. She recalled terribly missing her mother and wanting to see her so badly, but she couldn't remember the reason why? What was causing her to cry? She was sitting right here. She was safe.

Beside her mother, a woman, a nurse, matronly and warm, wandered up and took her mother's shoulder. She must have said something comforting, because her mother nodded and smiled, and seemed to be reaching for something. Scully could feel the slightest of pressures on her palm, but as she glanced down to her hands, folded neatly in her lap, she saw nothing there.

It was quiet for some time in the forest, and for a while Scully simply existed, one with the rippling water, the soft whisper of trees, and the touch of the crisp wind on her face. When she opened her eyes towards the dock again, she was surprised to see she had somehow drifted slightly further away. And standing there, looking at her with the fire of God in his eyes was Mulder. It scared her, slightly, as she stared up into that all too familiar face, his green eyes so dark, they were nearly gray and his angular jaw clenched so tight she could hear his teeth grind under the weight. It was that darkness, she remembered, that anger and loss that had frightened her so much before, now let loose with full fury as he began shouting, though she couldn't hear his words. She could more see his gestures and feel the impact of what he was saying. Mulder was always a man of action, a man seeking answers, and he began grabbing people, tossing things, in a matter so startling she almost wanted to hide within herself to escape from the full weight of his avenging wrath.

Most surprising of all was her mother, coming out of no where, standing there beside him on the dock, grabbing one flailing arm as she uttered one single word, the one Scully herself could never say to him. She simply said "Fox". It had the effect of startling Mulder and causing him to stop, mid-hysterics, his shoulder's to slump, and his righteous anger to pause, as he acquiesced to Maggie's calmer thinking? How did she do that, Scully wondered, as they wandered away. She didn't even know that her mother had ever met Mulder, let alone knew his first name. How did they meet and why? And why was it he was so angry, so hell bent on causing havoc? She had never seen Mulder in that sort of a rage before, not even at his worst.

They were gone for some time, with only the nurses coming by to check on her. In particular she liked the matronly looking woman, her soft, round face and gentle smile brightened her. She seemed to remember her name as Owens, Nurse Owens. She would come, hold her hand, and tell her to stay with them, than she had things to do yet, and she would get better. And she promised to be right there if Scully needed anything. Strange, but Nurse Owens was the only one she ever seemed to be able to physically hear. She was glad of it, frankly. It was so much nicer, more comforting than the other nurse, the African-American woman, who looked at her with sadness and pity, as if she expected Scully and her boat to float away.

Perhaps she was sick. Why did all of these nurses come and check up on her at this dock? But it was silly. Why would she be in a boat on a lake in a forest if she were sick? It was utterly confusing and she didn't have the capacity to give it much deep consideration. Instead she sat and watched, waiting to see who would come to see her next. All the while her boat drifted, lazily, along the water as the lead to the pier became longer, and longer, and longer.

Missy visited next. Scully wasn't surprised to see her sister, nor was she surprised to see her whip out a crystal of some sort and hold that out towards her. She would have giggled at her older sister if she could, but it was Melissa, and she always felt there was a chant or crystal to heal the ails of anyone. She watched her for the briefest of moments, wondering just what Melissa was up to, but the strangest thing happened.

For the briefest of moments she felt as if she could feel her sister's touch. Not on her hand, the one resting in her lap. But in her mind, on her soul, in her heart, as if her sister was reaching out a metaphoric hand to her. And Scully found herself taking the hand, holding it tight, and squeezing it, focusing her energies on wrapping herself around her sister's presence. How she had missed Melissa, whether she admitted it or not. Perhaps her sister was into strange, mystical trinkets, and had ideas that only Mulder could truly appreciate, but she was her sister. And she so wanted to hug her, to tell her she was glad to see her, after…after…Scully's memory faltered. She slipped from the warmth of her sister's mental grasp as she tried to recall what it was that she had been through. And there was nothing there, nothing she could remember at least. She frowned. Why was it she couldn't remember something as simple as that? Dread set in for the briefest of moments, and fear. She pulled away from Melissa and sat there, quietly watching her.

Melissa didn't leave, nor did she stop. She stood there, eyes closed, unmoving, until once again her mother and Mulder appeared beside her, Mulder looking angrily confrontational, her mother looking relieved. Immediately Maggie grabbed her elder daughter and held her tight and for the briefest of moments Scully wished her mother would hold her like that as well, tightly and never let her go.

Surprisingly, Mulder seemed less than enthusiastic about meeting the black sheep of the Scully family and about as dubious of Melissa and her crystals as Scully herself was. That shocked her a bit. Mulder frowned suspiciously as Melissa made him stretch his hands out towards Scully, much as Melissa had done earlier, and made him close his eyes. Scully wondered if he, like her sister, could form an actually presence within her. She waited, and waited. But there was nothing there, no hint of Mulder, of his vibrancy, of his burning, flaming, passionate belief. There was only anger and revenge and Scully sighed, pulling away from whatever it was that Mulder was projecting.

She watched on the dock as his soft, heavy lidded eyes opened, and his face for the briefest of moments looked so sorrowful it pained her to watch him. But then it hardened as he turned towards Melissa and shook his head. He walked away, for the first time in Scully's memory of her former partner actually not believing, not buying into and rejecting it wholesale. Melissa seemed to echo her sentiment, and watched Mulder walk away with infinite compassion and sympathy. Just what had he been through, Scully wondered. And was it because of her?

Hours went by, perhaps days, though she couldn't tell. The light never changed here, the sun never rose or set and night never came into the sky. But she could feel the passage of time. Others came and went on the dock, as she drifted on and on, further and further away, and it became harder and harder to see and sense them. She thought Frohike came by once, dressed in a suit. She was surprised that he even owned one. He brought flowers for her. She thought it awfully sweet on his part. Despite his initial impression on her, he had turned out to be a rather nice, even gentlemanly person, even with his outer, creepy appearance.

Her mother, Melissa, and Mulder were ever-present fixtures on the dock. Mulder came and went, though never for long, and each time he looked harder, colder, more distant, more determined. She wasn't sure she liked what she saw in him. At least Melissa was there, talking to him, hopefully talking sense into him. He seemed to listen to her a little at least. Perhaps it was the way Melissa's eyes flashed angrily at him when he was being particularly obstinate. Scully wondered if that was how she looked while arguing with Mulder. She missed arguing with Mulder.

Nurse Owens was the only other person Scully saw with any regularity. She would come when no one else was around. Sometimes it was just a gentle touch, others it was a whisper and she would cling to that, feel that she needed to heed the nurses words. She didn't even realize that she was going anywhere.

She noticed, gradually, that the further she drifted out, the more and more a peculiar fog seemed to grow. She hadn't noticed at first, until the shapes on the pier became misty and even the forest with its brightly colored leaves became hard to see. At first she thought she should be frightened, perhaps she should try to maneuver the boat closer to shore again. But she lacked any oars and had no way of getting closer outside of jumping in and swimming. And with the coolness in the air and her heavy wool coat, it didn't sound like a promising proposition. Instead she let the fog grow around her, to thicken like a shroud, as she watched helplessly, looking towards the shore to see if anyone noticed. Apparently no one did. A man in a white lab coat, so like the ones she used to wear, walked up to the dock. Beside them was a whole bevy of machines, the sort she was used to handling everyday in the hospital when she had still just been a resident. She watched as the man began to turn them off, one by one, and for the briefest of moments she panicked as she felt the rope that tied her boat to the pier suddenly snap, unleashing her further into the fog.

She wanted to cry out, to stop him, to tell him wait. But she couldn't vocalize a thing. Instead she drifted, into the silver gray whiteness as the pier disappeared from sight. She wanted to cry, but found she couldn't.

All she could do was drift.


	32. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully comes back to herself.

It was cold where she lay. She couldn't seem to possibly warm up. Around her there was silence. She wondered if she could open her eyes. Should she bother? Despite the cold, she was comfortable lying there, unseeing, not having to face the truths that were around her. And what were those truths? Death? Heaven? Would she go to heaven if she died? Her Catholic upbringing told her she would, but there was always that question of "if", that improbable intangible out there, the stuff Mulder lived to chase with zeal.

Mulder! He seemed so very far away to her now. It was funny how little things occurred to her about him in these moments, things that she hardly noticed or hardly dared to notice when she was alive. Such as the smile of his that bordered just on this side of arrogance, the cockiness to his walk, though the seriousness was never too far away, the way he would place his fingers in the small of her back. If he got coffee in the morning he always remembered to bring her some, with sugar and cream and he was horrified by her healthy lunch choices and would always try to tempt her with chili-covered tater tots or something equally fattening and bad for your heart.

She hadn't ever told Mulder once just how much she appreciated him in her life, she realized sadly. There entire year together was gone in a blink of an eye and she would never have the chance to say how truly much she valued his friendship and honesty over their all-to-brief partnership. She was dying. She knew it and there were many regrets she had laying there. She didn't spend enough time with her mother after her father died. She had been far to resentful of Missy. She hadn't bothered to keep up with Charlie and Bill, let alone her scores of friends she had neglected over the years. There was much she regretted not having completed in her life. But not telling Mulder how much he meant to her before this, perhaps she would regret that the most going into the hereafter.

When she realized she could see, she was sorely disappointed by it. Perhaps it was Purgatory, where you would wait patiently after you died. If this was, it was rathe boring. White tile lined the walls, much like her autopsy lab, all except one wall where dark shadows and emptiness lurked. She watched it quietly. It seemed like the spot, if any, where something would happen. After all, her life seemed to be filled with people coming out of shadows, why would it be any different in death? 

Sure enough, footsteps began ringing, leather against concrete, echoing in the tile hall with quick, snapping efficiency. Was this Death, she wondered, curt and exact, coming to take her wherever she was meant to go ultimately? She felt her heartbeat race, a strange sensation, if she was supposed to be dead. Did you even need things such as fear and survival when you were waiting in Purgatory? A figure coalesced from the darkness, gleaming white in the harshness of overhead lights. Certainly not the figure of Death she imagined, with the dark robes and scythe. She watched as steadily it advanced, white uniform in neat, straight lines, hat tucked under its arm in precision. When it finally occurred to her who it was, she could have cried, if only the tears would come. 

Her father…Ahab…he had come to show his Starbuck the way home. She hated to admit in this moment she had felt so terribly sad and lonely, all by herself, with no one and nothing familiar around her. She felt so grateful that in these last moments of her life he would be there to take her with him. He stopped by where she lay, standing tall and sorrowful, every inch Rear Admiral William Scully of the United States Navy. She wanted to rise from where she lay, to jump beside him and to wrap her arms around his rounded middle, to hug him tightly and say she was sorry, to never let him go again. But she couldn't move, couldn't twitch. Instead, she lay there, silent and quiet as her father's familiar face gazed down on her with all the love and pride she had craved in those last few months since he died.

"Hello, Starbuck. It's Ahab." He began, pausing as he watched her. She wanted to laugh, to say of course it was how could she forget her own father? But she could no more speak than she could move. And for that matter, she realized, she couldn't open her eyes, really. How was it she was seeing this, experiencing the light, her father, his sad face watching her in this white tiled room?

"People would say to me, 'Life is short.' 'Kids, they grow up fast,' and 'Before you know it, it's over.' I never listened. For me, life went at a proper pace. There were many rewards... until the moment that I knew, I understood that... that I would never see you again, my little girl. Then my life felt as if it had been the length of one breath, one heartbeat. I never knew how much I loved my daughter until I could never tell her. At that moment, I would have traded every medal, every commendation, every promotion for one more second with you. We'll be together again, Starbuck, but not now. Soon."

He turned, a quick, snapping, pivot-on-the-heels he had learned marching as a mid-shipman at the Naval Academy at Annapolis years ago. She wanted to cry after him to wait, to beg that he not leave her here in this place, where it was so bright, and she was so cold. She wanted to follow him, her captain, wanted to tag behind him like she had as a child, holding on to his uniform coat tails and march smartly alongside him. Her father didn't stop, though, and she could make no noise to cause him to return. She waited and watched, inconsolable, as the darkness swallowed him once more, and she was left there, in that bright room, alone.

Scully watched for long moments, wondering if anyone else would come to her out of the darkness, but no one did. She waited to see what, if anything would happen. Nothing did, for the longest of times. Not till a still, small voice hummed through her mind, through her soul, through her being, warm and soft, like the comforting blanket she was so craving at the moment. She let it roll across her consciousness, embracing and loving, whispering ever so quietly.

"Dana? I know death is at arm's reach tonight. But Dana, your time is not over."

Her time wasn't over. That was what her father had said as well. Scully thought about that as she lay there, the white tile room fading about her into nothingness. She still had more to do in this life. But if it wasn't her time. She would have to return, back to the real world, back to the place where she hurt and ached, where something horrible had happened to her she could no longer remember. She would have to face the tears of her mother and the painful anger of Mulder as she woke and all the questions, the multitude of questions. Could she really leave this world with so much of what she had promised to do and so much of what she wanted to do, left undone? She didn't think so. Scullys, by their nature, weren't exactly quitters. And she could do no less of her father or her family name but to return to the world she could so easily leave behind, despite all of the frustrations, the fear, the anxiety, and the questions. 

Alien babies, strange viruses, and government conspiracies aside, there was a great deal she had left to do with her life and Scully wasn't exactly ready to give up on it. There was Mulder's quest, as always, she realized. There was the truth behind Samantha's disappearance, about what it was Scully had seen in that Erlenmeyer flask and why it was so important a man had to die over it. There were so many unanswered questions and judging from Mulder's behavior she doubted he would carry on for long without her around to keep him in line. She wanted to help him finish his quest. She needed to help him finish his quest. It was a part of her now as well, whether she liked it or not. And to step away from all of that undone would be a failure on her part. And Scully had never failed at anything.

It took her some time to realize that the slab she thought she had been laying on was indeed some sort of gurney and that it was padded beneath her, though for the life of her it didn't feel as though it was. Beside the bed where she lay prostrate and ever so still she could hear a shuffling, murmured apologies as someone seemingly loomed over her for the briefest of moments. She wanted to open her eyes to look up at whoever it was, but discovered her eyelids would not move. Why would't they move?

"How is she doing?" The voice that spoke was Mulder's, his familiar, flat tone, sounding ragged and empty, so devoid of anything outside of grief that for a moment Scully wanted to simply reach across to him and reassure him that all was well. But she couldn't move her hand. She couldn't even twitch a finger. All she could do was lay there, and drowse.

"Her signs are looking a bit better." A woman replied hesitantly, perhaps not wanting to sound too hopeful. After all, Scully granted her, she had just been on deaths door, speaking to her father. In her medical opinion she wouldn't hold out much hope either. Those in her profession were notorious pessimists.

"Thanks," Mulder mumbled. She could hear a shifting squeak, as if he was trying to wiggle around in a chair that was far too small for his long legs. It was likely the case. How long had Mulder been sitting there, like this, beside her? More startling, though perhaps it shouldn't be, was that Mulder was there at all. But she remembered the horrible, thunderous look on his face from her dreams, and the way she had been frightened of him. What exactly had happened to her?

Long, warm fingers wrapped around her freezing cold ones and she enjoyed the warmth, the only warmth she seemed to get as she lay there, still struggling to come to some sort of sentient life. Couldn't anyone use blankets in this hospital? Her limbs were so frozen it was a wonder they didn't think she was dead. But Mulder's fingers were pleasant and they squeezed her own so firmly, and yet so gently. It was as if he was afraid to let go, for fear she might disappear on him.

In her minds eye for the briefest of seconds, there was white light and she screamed his name. And then there was nothing. That all the memory she had of what happened. Damn it all, she thought to herself.

"Scully?" His voice was whisper soft, cracking ever so slightly as he murmured low. It always did when he tried to speak softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I didn't make it to you faster. And…I'm sorry I didn't pay back those sorry, sons-of-bitches who did this to you." His voice caught ever so slightly as his fingers pressed hard against hers for an instant. "I'm sorry I failed you, Dana."

Failed her? How she wondered vaguely as she heard the chair squeak again as Mulder's feet shuffled against the floor and he released her hand. She had the impression once again of someone looming over her, as softly, so gently she could have almost believed that it didn't happen, his lips grazed her forehead, pressing a kiss there, warm with his breath, and scratchy from a chin that hadn't known his razor in a few days. The sensation left her skin tingling when he pulled away, and she muzzily wished she could wake further to ask him not to go, not just yet at least.

At some point he must have. She was in a forest again, though not the same one she had seen earlier, sitting on the lake. It was a different forest, similar to the ones in Oregon and Washington Mulder always seemed to like to drag her to, full of tall, soft pine trees and the smell of rich earth, of green grass. She didn't know why she was there or how she got there and she had no way of knowing how long she had been there. The light in the forest, soft and gentle, became bright and sharp, the green branches coalescing into green tiles, the soft chatter of wind in the branches becoming words, murmurs, and phrases. No one was there, not even her mother. This surprised her. Her mother she had supposed would be a constant. But even she wouldn't want her mother hovering to the point of exhaustion and perhaps she had wisely gone home for some sleep. Scully sighed, as she let her eyes flutter open ever so slightly, longing to yawn and stretch, but finding she couldn't manage it. Not just yet. Instead she simply looked about herself, the green tiled room with long, white curtains on either side. Something in her mind jogged. Northeast Georgetown Medical she thought. She frowned as she tried to remember why it was she would know something like that.

A woman came into her view then, a nurse who looked as if she was going about her rounds, looking over her charts, taking blood samples. She stopped as she glanced at Scully and stared when she realized that Scully was staring back at her. Her face at once became thrilled and concerned as she called over her shoulder. "Call Dr. Daly."

She was in a hospital? Was she sick? She knew her neck ached as she lacked a pillow and God was she cold. She tried her best to not sound as perturbed as she felt, freezing and uncomfortable as she was, as her voice croaked from injury and long disuse. "Can I please get a blanket? I'm cold."

The woman stopped for the briefest of moments, staring at her, before grinning and nodding broadly. "I'll get you one of those while the doctor checks you out, Ms. Scully. Then we'll get you a private room all to yourself."

"Thank you," she sighed, as she let her eyes drift back shut for the briefest of moments. She wasn't asleep, but the light was suddenly too bright for her, the noises suddenly too loud. She wanted her mother, she wanted her sister and she wanted Mulder. And she wanted a comfortable bed, with a blanket and more than just this ugly, green hospital gown. And maybe pizza...God she was starving. She doubted they would allow her to have it, but perhaps she could talk her sister into sneaking a piece. She knew she could con Mulder into it. Perhaps, she thought with happy muzziness, she'd bring the subject up when she was in her room, safe and sound, and without a doctor prodding her to death.


	33. Tony's Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully guilts Mulder into letting her have pizza.

Scully knew she couldn't be dead yet. Hell wouldn't smell of garlic and Italian sausage, unless Satan was a truly sadistic fallen angel, and meant to torment her through all eternity by eating slices of her favorite pizza and not allowing her even a nibble. If Satan looked anything like Fox Mulder, she grumbled as she opened her eyes, she might just be in one of Dante's levels of Purgatory, the one he hadn't discussed, involving pizza-eating demons.

"You know if the nurses catch you eating that in here, they might toss you out." She croaked hoarsely as she moved to sit up, her mouth watering to the point of drooling.

"Never underestimate the power of bribery." Mulder winked as he chewed slowly. "Especially not on a night shift when someone offers you Tony's."

"You bought from Tony's?" she couldn't help the plaintive wail in her voice. Tony's was a well-known favorite amongst all night owls in DC, which was about everyone in the city. She gazed at the box longingly, trying to remember the last time she had eaten from there. Was it during one of their late night talks? Perhaps just before they had been separated and the X-files closed? Her stomach rumbled softly. Beside her Mulder laughed.

"I brought a plate," he offered helpfully.

"I haven't been cleared yet." She couldn't help herself, her doctor's mentality took over.

"It's Tony's, Scully." He waved his half-eaten slice in front of her, evil temptation. "You know you want it."

"Damn it, Mulder, pass a slice," she growled. He happily obliged, handing over a slice of steaming, gooey greasiness and smiled smugly as she folded it in half and took the biggest bite she could manage.

"Uhhhh…" If one could sexually climax over food, Scully thought it would be over this pizza. She sighed in contentment as she chewed her bite slowly, savoring the texture of bread and cheese and the spicy flavors that rolled across her tongue.

"So can I get away with watching the Redskins game, then?" Mulder waggled his eyebrows hopefully, television remote in hand.

"Mmmm?" She didn't care. Let him watch porn on her television, as long as she could eat Tony's for the rest of the night. She waved her free hand, the one not holding pizza, as he clicked on the television, flipping channels.

"More pizza?" He offered, as he found his ball game.

"Yes!" Scully managed around pizza crust, shoving her paper plate towards him and receiving two large pieces for her efforts. She gleefully took them back, grinning madly at her partner, sitting back on her pillows to watch the game with him.

They ate in companionable silence for several moments, watching the Redskins playing at the New York Giants. Scully couldn't care, really. She had never been much of a sports fan, but it seemed something to do while eating pizza. Mulder was easily entranced by anything having to do with athletes and pieces of leather flying around. She glanced sideways at him, expecting to find him engrossed in men in tight uniforms smacking into each other in a vain effort to pound each other into the ground. Instead he was watching her, his hazel green eyes intent on her face as she chewed her pizza, his own forgotten on a plate in his lap. She turned her own fully on him as she self consciously put her food down, her eyebrows raised in silent question. He looked away, back down at his food, picking his pizza up hastily.

"Mulder," she began, but he waved her off.

"Nothing, Scully. Eat your pizza."

"Sort of hard to do when you are staring at me as if I were a ghost." She reached a hand up to the corner of her mouth with a worried frown. "Do I have pizza sauce on my face?"

"If you did, do you think I would tell you?" He was teasing her, trying to change the subject. She lowered her fingers.

"If you think I'm disappearing on you after getting Tony's, you have another thing coming." She tried to laugh, to make light of it.

"I've had dates who've done that."

"You've gone out with the wrong kind of women."

He shrugged, smiling.

"Mulder." She set her pizza aside, feeling suddenly less hungry for it. "I'm here now. I'm back." Couldn't that be all that mattered, she wondered.

"I know." He didn't look at her, but focused his eyes on the game.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Do you know that for sure, Scully?" Mulder asked softly and pointedly. "We don't know why you were taken, let alone by who…."

"Mulder, does it matter?" She knew it didn't matter to her. She was home, with her mother, her sister, with Mulder. It didn't matter where she had been.

"A month, Scully," he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes blazing into her. "Can you remember anything?"

"No," she replied firmly. "Mulder, I can't remember."

"It's all right, Scully." He shook his head, as he let it drop between his shoulders. "It's all right."

She watched his dark head shake softly and wished so badly she could give him what he wanted. "Mulder, I'm sorry…."

"Don't be," He sat back up, smiling gently. "I shouldn't push you, not so soon after you got back. A month in a strange land…you should be eating your pizza and enjoying yourself."

"Yeah," she smiled at him. "A strange land. Pity I didn't think to grab any postcards."

This at least made him laugh.


	34. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully finally returns home.

For a moment, her home looked as if she had never left it.

"Mom and I spent two days cleaning the place." Melissa beamed as she carried in Scully's bags into her own apartment. Six weeks gone and it already felt slightly alien and strange as she went in. She stared around her own home for several long moments as her sister trundled her bags into her bedroom, staring at it as if it were strange and foreign. And for all intense purposes, she thought, it might as well be. There was an air about it of invasion, of intrusion, of others hands and fingers all over her things, her books, her carpet, her sofa. It made her shudder to think about it.

"It was a bit of a site, Mom didn't want you coming home to that." Melissa called from the bedroom. "The super fixed your window of course, he did that right after you disappeared. He was really good about getting Mom a key to get in here."

Scully glanced across her living space to the bay window in the distance. A flash of Duane Barry's face, of her screaming, and then nothing. She stood rooted to the spot, staring at the window, with its curtains limp, loose from their ties. Weren't those taken with her? She tried to recall. Didn't Barry use those to tie her up with?

Damn, but she couldn't remember.

Melissa stopped at the doorway to the bedroom, watching her as she lingered by the doorway. "It's hard, isn't it," she asked, her dark, blue eyes understanding and worried. Trust Missy, the empathetic one, to cut right to the chase. Scully wanted to say that no, she was fine, but she knew Missy would smell that lie and would harass her till she admitted otherwise.

"It is," Scully admitted quietly, her eyes falling to the spot where once a coffee table had been. "My coffee table is gone too?"

"You don't remember?"

"No." Scully shook her head, finally stepping fully inside to her apartment, closing the door behind her and stealing herself for…what, exactly? Her nerves were on a fine edge, pulled taught as piano wire, ready to spring at the slightest touch. Was it because this was where she was taken? Was it because of the fact she couldn't remember what even happened? She didn't know.

"Well, Mom and I did all the laundry, even put fresh sheets on. And the Super cleaned all the carpets of course." Melissa studied their handiwork briefly. "He was very nice about it all, he was so happy to hear you were found and were coming home. You know he spoke to Mom every time she would come by, and I know Fox would fill him in from time to time."

Fox. Scully paused, staring at her sister weirdly. It sounded so strange to her, hearing Mulder referred to by her family as Fox. He wouldn't even allow her to call him that name, and yet he allowed them the free right to use it with impunity. "Mulder was here?"

"Practically every day, mostly to collect your mail from what Mom said. I think he just wanted to check on the place, make sure that it was okay." Melissa shrugged as her normally candid expression glided off pointedly towards the kitchen. "And we stocked your kitchen too. All you had in there was pizza and ice cream. Mom was horrified."

"I meant to go shopping that night, but I was late getting out of Quantico. I ended up just getting ice cream I think." Scully wandered aimlessly in the direction of her kitchen, touching the tiled counters, the wooden chairs, her beloved coffee pot that was cold and empty even of stale dregs. She turned to her sister, who watched her quietly from the doorway. "Thanks…for all of this, I mean." She waved her hands around aimlessly at everything and nothing. She didn't even know what to say or how to say it. It was all a bit much.

"You're ready to kick me out of here and start rearranging everything the way you want it, aren't you?" Melissa's mouth quirked up sideways teasingly.

"Yes…no…I don't know." Scully shrugged, aimlessly picking up a mug that said "Go Navy" on its side. She rolled it around in her hands. "I don't want to kick you out, Missy."

"But you are sick of the sight of me," her sister replied sagely.

"Not really…but maybe." Scully didn't know if that answer made sense. Since waking from her coma a week before, her sister and mother had been near constant figures at her bedside, hovering over her to the point of near smothering. It was both gratifying, and at the same time it was a constant reminder to her of how close she had come to death and how others saw her as weak, in need of care, of protection. She wasn't in need of protection…was she? She thought of her window in the living room, and wondered. Pulling out a kitchen chair she slumped heavily into it, feeling out of sorts and out of place in the one place in her life she had always felt was a constant.

"I don't know, Missy, its all so…mixed up?" She ran hands still sticky with the glue of medical tape through hair that she was dying to get under a shower and shampoo. She felt grimy. She looked worse. Dressing that morning she noticed how thin and tired her face was. She looked far older than she should, with raccoon eyes in sunken cheeks. The rest of her seemed to be the exact opposite. She felt as if she had put on fifteen pounds since her disappearance, even her baggiest jeans had fit tightly as she had slid them on. She felt bloated and strange in her own skin. Her doctor had assured her that it was mostly just the side effect of whatever virus she had contracted while abducted, the strange illness that had left her in coma and would pass as her immune system stabilized. Logically, as a doctor herself she knew he was right. But it still made her self conscious as she walked down the hallways to her discharge, an additional way she didn't feel comfortable being herself.

"Dana, it's your first hour out of the hospital." Melissa laughed as she settled across from her sister, tall and elegant in her casual, flower print dress. As always, Missy seemed to make it so easy to be herself. "No one expects you to get it sorted out right this second."

"I know," Scully stared down at her well-scrubbed table, picking at it with a fingernail badly in need of a manicure. "But I feel like I have to, like I need to do something. You're hovering over me like a moth and every time Mom looks at me I think she's either going to burst into tears or break into pieces. I mean just two days before I was gone, we were laughing and hanging out with Charlie around the table, everything was normal, everything was right. And now even Mulder acts as if he can't decide whether to prod me as another one of his blasted X-files or to put me on a shelf somewhere and leave me there, like I was made of crystal." She scowled blackly at her salt and peppershakers. "I mean we have always had that argument, the two of us, about his over-protectiveness. And now, it's only worse." She was his friend, a fellow agent, and a colleague. And now, she feared, this whole episode on reinforced the idea that she was not just those things to Mulder, but a woman, and one who was an easy target to crazy men out ready to kidnap unsuspecting females. Never mind the fact that every other person Barry happened to try to carry off was a man.

"Be easy on Fox, Dana." Melissa sighed carefully. "He's not had an easy time of it."

"Like I have," Scully replied petulantly, perhaps unfairly. She tugged irritably at the tight waistband of her jeans.

"It's different, Dana. Yes, you nearly died and I can't imagine what your experienced or how it made you feel. But I do know what it did to your partner."

"Former partner," Scully corrected automatically, for no real reason besides peevishness.

Melissa paused, fixing her with the sort of look her mother would shoot her, the reminder that she was being unreasonable. Scully relented with a sigh.

"Do you remember you were speaking to him the night you were taken," Melissa asked gently, her deep eyes never leaving her sister's. "We replaced your phone, by the way. It was crushed when that man took you. That's because you were screaming to Fox over his answering machine, telling him to come help you."

Flashes of vague memory, like slippery ropes of gauzy silk fluttered through her mental grasp. Try as she might, she couldn't hold on to them. She sighed, shaking her head. "I don't remember any of that."

"No, I didn't think you would," Melissa murmured reasonably. "But Fox does. I think it's engrained on his soul by this time. He was there that night. He was the first one to speak to Mom, to hold her hand, to comfort her. She was so scared, and none of the police would do anything to help her. I can't imagine how he must have felt doing that, knowing that the he was the one who heard the whole thing on his answering machine, and then have to be the one to hold Mom together."

Scully could only imagine what Mulder must have heard, and what had played through his mind the moment he heard it. For a man tortured with nightmares of his own sister's disappearance, it must have been excruciating. She felt a hard, cold lump form in her stomach as she realized just what she must have unintentionally done to him. "His sister was taken from his home when he was a child. Right out of his house. He's lived with that guilt all of his life." She didn't think she had ever told Melissa of Mulder's secret.

Melissa's eyes clouded with worry and understanding as if pieces had finally fallen into place for her, something unexplained finally revealed itself to her. She nodded slowly, rising from the table and moving towards the coffee pot, glancing back at Scully by way of an unspoken question for coffee. Scully nodded, watching as her sister pulled coffee grounds from the cabinet and filled the filter, pouring water into the machine to begin brewing. Her mouth started salivating almost immediately. She'd been denied coffee while in the hospital, and she had been yearning for some for days.

"You know, I don't know Fox as well as you know him, obviously." Melissa turned when she was done and leaned against the counter, waiting as the coffee brewed aromatically beside her. "I mean I've heard you talk about him. I didn't expect him to be so…" She paused, searching for a word. "Intense."

Scully laughed, nodding knowingly. That intensity could be terrifying at times. "That's Mulder. If I didn't know his middle name was William, I'd say it was 'Passionate'."

"He believed that you were coming home even when Mom was giving up." Melissa carefully picked up the Navy mug that her sister had set down earlier. "You know, Mom had a gravestone made for you, just in case?" She looked vaguely horrified by the thought, shivering slightly. "I think Fox had to believe you were coming home. Perhaps much as he believes his sister will come home one day."

Scully's head jerked up, "How did you know he believed she was coming home?"

"I read his aura," Melissa said promptly, with all seriousness, until Scully's dubious look caused her to crack into a wide smile. "You aren't the only decent investigator in the family, Dana. It was guesswork, mostly, things you said and that Mom said, and things he didn't say. And the look on his face every time he saw you, lying there." She frowned, setting down the mug and crossing her arms around herself, shrugging them tightly to her willowy body. "He looked like a man who had lost faith in everything…especially himself. As if you were the only thing he still had that kept him going and if he lost you he'd have nothing."

Quite a bit of deduction Melissa had made there, Scully thought as she stared at her, and perhaps more than a bit of wishful thinking. Her sister had been listening to her mother's not-so-casual hints for far too long. "Melissa, Mulder and I are friends, colleagues. He cares about me because he respects me and the work I do."

"Maybe." Melissa shrugged as the beeper on the coffee machine sounded, and she took back up the Navy mug. "Perhaps that's what it is for you. But for Fox, I think there is something going on there that not even he realizes."

Her sister, the matchmaker, Scully rolled her eyes, snorting as she took the proffered cup from Melissa, and reached automatically for the sugar bowl. Without a word, Melissa reached for the half-and-half in the fridge and placed it in front of her.

"Missy, I think you are making far too much of Mulder than is really there. I told you, his sister was taken from his home, it's been his driving force all of his life. And then he's lost almost every professional person he's ever been close to. Most of the FBI thinks he's a crank job and those few who still respected him for his talent died horrible deaths, just in the last year. One died in an elevator accident, the other was killed by a convicted serial murderer. You have to admit, that's a lot for any guy to take, and then to add this."

Melissa didn't seem to agree, but she didn't argue. She poured her own coffee and took her seat across from Scully once again, putting in two spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee before sipping it appreciatively. Scully could tell by the look in her eye, the stubborn, Scully-ish set to her jaw, she wasn't about to let this Mulder thing go. "You know, the night before you woke up, the day we took you off the ventilators, they told us that they didn't think you were going to make it."

Scully bit back the exasperated sigh on her lips. Five days ago might feel like a world away from where she was sitting, but it was only a week for her family, after so many horrible weeks of just not knowing. She could be dead…should be dead. But it wasn't her time, she thought. Her father had told her that much.

"Mom called in a priest. She invited Fox to stay, but he said no. I worried about him. He didn't want to take you off, he fought it, but he was the one to sign off on the paperwork."

Scully frowned, thinking back. "I may have cornered him on that one. I don't think he knew what he was signing." She flushed a tad guiltily.

"Anyway, you have his address in your contact book." She smiled sweetly, looking vaguely proud of herself for having been smart enough to think of that. "So I tracked him down. I didn't think he was home that night, his apartment was dark, but when I knocked, he opened the door." She swallowed, looking vaguely uncomfortable as she stared into her coffee. "I can't presume to know what he was doing, Dana, I want to make that clear, and I don't know what it could mean. But he was sitting there, waiting, alone in the dark, with a loaded gun. He tried to hide it, but I knew he had it. I'm a Navy admiral's daughter. I may not have run around with a BB gun like you did, but I'm no idiot."

That much was true, her father had taught them all gun safety at an early age. Missy was not stupid and she believed her when she murmured her suspicions, if for nothing else it sounded like the sort of mad thing Mulder would do. "Did he say why he was sitting in there like that?"

"No," Melissa shook her head. "And I can't presume to know. But I do know this. He was in perhaps one of the darkest places I've ever seen anyone. And I don't mean literally either. Laugh all you want at my notions and theories, Dana. But I can read human nature as well as anyone else. Fox was going to do something drastic that night, something I think you would not have wanted him to do, not for you at least. And it took a great deal for him to listen to me, to come with me that night to the hospital…to say goodbye to you."

Scully watched her sister, the coffee she had just swallowed becoming greasy and thick in her mouth as she found she suddenly couldn't swallow it easily. She managed anyway, as she set her cup down, as a half-remembered murmur occurred to her, a broken voice whispering, "I'm sorry I failed you" and the gentlest pressure to her forehead as she lay there, motionless.

"He thought he failed me." Scully felt her eyes brim with tears again. This time she let them fall, unbidden, as she reached for a paper napkin in a neat holder on her table. She dabbed at them as she cried, not even sure why she was crying, or for whom, really. Perhaps for Mulder, perhaps for herself, she didn't know. Why was this happening to them, and for what purpose? Was it just a cruel twist of some demented fate? Was it the weird implant the doctors had found in Duane Barry? Was it really just part of some elaborate scheme to once again remind them that there were others out there, bent on stopping them?

"Dana," Melissa reached a hand across the table to her, as Scully took it and squeezed it tightly. "Please be kind to him for right now. Try to understand he's been through hell looking for you. And remember that when everyone else gave you up for lost, Fox always believed he'd find you."

With her free hand, Scully touched the gold cross at the base of her throat, the legacy of her mother passed to her. She hadn't thought she would ever see it again, not till the moment Mulder had held it out to her with shy reverence. "Like I said, Missy, I survived because of the strength of his beliefs." Because Mulder's quest was now hers as well and there was too much at stake for her to give up.


	35. Checking On The Homestead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully returns to work.

"Are you sure you are ready to return to work, Agent Scully?" Skinner's dark eyes glanced her up and down from head to toe, his taciturn frown just on the shade of worried dubiousness. This was despite the release forms and file she had just brought with her from the Office of Professional Review clearing her for a return to active duty. If she hadn't gone through the same song and dance with OPR just an hour before, she perhaps would have been touched by her former bosses concern. Already she was tiring of the stares by those in the office, others who knew her, or at least knew of her, who had no doubt heard of what had happened and now stared at her as if she were some sort of Lazarus, returned from the dead. Perhaps she was. For certain no one else in the Bureau had expected to ever find her alive, no one except for Mulder. In the month since she awoke in the hospital, she had only a handful of visits and phone calls from him checking in on her, ensuring she was there, that she was alive, and she was well. But he said nothing about work, about anything normal, about anything that routine in their lives. She craved the routine, to be just another agent, to take back the life she had before Duane Barry. This was her first step.

"I've been released by my doctors to return to work and have completed the psych evaluation and the weapons re certification needed to come back full time." She nodded towards the paperwork lying on Skinner's desk. "I had expected of course to return straight back to Quantico, sir. I was surprised when they told me in OPR you had requested me personally to report to you?" She might as well cut straight to the matter. Skinner's eyes glittered briefly as he leaned back in his large, leather office chair, watching her for the longest of moments, as if thinking. He then reached across his large desk towards a stack of neat files, pulling out from near the top and handing it over to her.

"There's been a request for your services, Agent Scully. A new assignment, of sorts." Skinner's face was inscrutable as always as his blunt fingers passed it over to her. Puzzled, she read the file, torn between confusion and delight as her eyes flew up to meet Skinner's in surprise.

"You've opened the X-files again?" She was stunned. When did it happen? How did it happen? And why didn't Mulder say anything to her about it? "How?"

Skinner cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. "You're disappearance led to some questions that many couldn't answer or perhaps wouldn't. I took it upon myself to allow Mulder the ability to gain those answers." His grave face was stern at her shock. "I had to cross quite a few people to do this, Agent Scully. This time, we can't have any screw ups, no half-assed work, no mysterious men dying under strange circumstances. I need answers, results and good ones with clear and logical evidence. And if you have to sit under Mulder's ass all day making sense of the shit he spews, then so be it. Because I don't know if I can pull another rabbit out of my hat on this one, if you understand what I'm saying."

Scully nodded, her mind still trying to wrap itself around the fact that the X-files were open again and she was to return to it. She had thought she would return to Quantico, to more autopsies, to once again turning into Mulder's pet lab monkey. But he had requested her personally, despite the fact that he had a new partner, Krycek. Had he even allowed the newer, younger agent anywhere close to his precious body of work.

"Excuse me sir, why would Mulder ask for me?" She was met by the sort of frown that she expected the Assistant Director to give to a three-headed dog or a person spouting tongues suddenly in his office.

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, Agent Scully. Do you not wish to be return to the X-files?" There was concern there and true empathy. She realized that somewhere in the back of Walter Skinner's mind he must have thought there was a very real possibility that Scully might not want to return to the work she once did with Mulder, and with very good reason.

"No," she clarified quickly, "No, it's not that, but Agent Mulder already has a new partner. Agent Krycek. They seemed to work well together, I thought that…"

Skinner's eyes grew stormy as his expression hardened. "Yes, well Agent Krycek is no longer with the FBI, Agent Scully. Given the circumstances, I was going to grant Agent Mulder's request. I thought, perhaps given the fact that the two of you seemed to ignore your respective reassignments and worked together anyway, it shouldn't take much for you step back into the role of Agent Mulder's partner again, correct?"

If Skinner was annoyed by the fact she had worked behind the scenes for months while the X-files were closed, assisting Mulder with his cases, he hid it well. He seemed more or less resigned to the fact now. But it was Krycek's disappearance that disturbed her. He had worked so hard to gain the trust of both herself and Mulder and in a few short weeks was gone from the Bureau. What had happened? Recalling Melissa's words about Mulder, about the darkness her sister had described seeing in him, Scully hoped that whatever happened to Krycek, it had nothing to do with the Mulder and his infamous temper.

"No sir, I am happy to hear of the X-files reopening, and will be more than pleased to work with Agent Mulder again. I'm just…surprised is all."

"I would have thought Agent Mulder would have mentioned his request to you. About the opening of the X-files." Skinner frowned ever so slightly, but whatever thoughts passed at that moment, he shrugged them off and signed off on her reinstatement paperwork. "It's Friday, Agent Scully. Take the weekend to catch up. I'll expect you in the office bright and early first thing Monday morning." He passed the paperwork back across the desk to her as she rose and stood to take her proffered hand. For the first time Scully could recall since meeting the distant Assistant Director, he actually smiled. "I'm glad you're back, Scully. I hated to loose a good agent like you."

There was genuine warmth in his words and she found herself returning it with a brief, grateful smile of her own. "Thank you, sir."

Kimberly, Skinner's assistant, seemed less awed by Scully's appearance back at the Hoover Building than most of the rest of the agents and staff roaming the halls, but even she stared wide eyed as Scully moved quietly and quickly out of the office, smoothing her professional looking, gray suit protectively around herself as she moved past the murmured whispers and surprised looks in the hallways. The basement office was where she belonged now. She wondered if Mulder even expected to see her. She doubted it as she took the elevator down to the very lowest level, nervous for the first time since she had first stepped into Fox Mulder's office a year-and-a-half ago.

As she rounded the corner of the doorway into the office, it occurred to her that it had been months since she had last been in this office, hardly a blink of an eye. Yet in those months the world had changed, her life had changed. No longer was she merely an outside observer into Mulder's weird world of the unexplained. She was herself an X-file now, as intertwined in all of this as Mulder himself was. Her life had become part of his obsession, now her obsession as well.

The world outside of the familiar, dusty, dank office might have been turned on its head, the inside of the office stayed eerily the same. Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster still hung, tacked on the cork board behind his desk, his strange collection of newspaper clippings patiently pinned and displayed along side it. Her table still sat in the corner. She had carved that space out for herself in the clutter of unwanted, ancient office equipment and stacked boxed of files Mulder hadn't been able to cram into the ancient, creaking metal filing cabinets lining the far way. And sitting beside them, at his light board, dark head bent patiently over what Scully could only assume were slide photos of something completely bizarre, was Mulder, his back to the door, completely unaware of her presence there.

"You've grown awful trusting for a man as paranoid as yourself." She forewent the politeness of knocking in the hope of seeing him jump and whirl on her in delighted surprise. To her disappointment he hardly flinched. Rather he kept methodically looking over his slides, his voice lazy and preoccupied.

"The doctors finally set you free, Scully?" He sat up enough to stare at one paper edged slide, before setting it down and picking up another.

"Cleared it through OPR. I'm back in the saddle again come Monday."

"Monday? That soon?" Mulder turned to look at her now over his shoulder, his eyes straining in surprise around his gold-wire rimmed glasses. "I thought you would take more time. You know, get better."

"I am better, Mulder." She rolled her eyes in a sign of frustration she could show to either OPR or Skinner upstairs. She moved to lean comfortably against his desk, a position she used to often take when they had worked together before, crossing her arms as he turned to face her fully. "Whatever it was that was done to me, whatever it was I was infected with, it's gone now and the doctors can't even explain it." She shrugged. "Short of feeling bloated and not being able to fit into a single pair of jeans, I feel physically fine. Besides, how much more daytime television could I stand. If I have to see one more unwed mother trying to discover the paternity of her child, I'll shoot myself. And there is only so much _All My Children_ a human being can stand before they realize that this tripe is utterly ridiculous."

"So did Erica and Dimitri ever get together?" The corners of his full mouth twitching in a vain effort to stay perfectly sober.

Scully narrowed her eyes, unable to stop the laugh that bubbled up despite her biting her tongue. "And you would know this because?"

"I'm an insomniac and they like to show repeats late at night. I was always a fan of Tad and Dixie."

"You are so disturbing." She shook her head in amused perplexity, pulling away from his desk and glancing at the piles of papers already accumulated. It didn't take him long to get back to business, she realized, as she picked up one case file with a recognizably newer case number on it. "Skinner told me he reopened the X-files. He said you requested me specifically." She glanced sideways at Mulder who nodded, shrugging nervously as he pulled off his glasses and set them carefully by his slides.

"I thought that if you wanted to come back, you might want to help me out on a more full time basis, rather than just run around as my lab monkey." She had accused him of doing just that on several occasions. "I know you've been dying to get back into real field work again and I know it's not anything upstairs." He shuffled his long legs, avoiding her gaze as he twiddled one of the stems of his glasses on the table nervously, as Scully realized that Mulder was worried. He though she would tell him that she wasn't coming back. "I'd understand if you wanted to go back to Quantico, hold out for something more glamorous in another department. I can put a good word in Violent Crimes, for what it's worth, but Bill Patterson over there is a raging asshole, never has liked me."

"Mulder!" Scully stopped him, her mouth curving softly upward as he shot her a studied, sideways glance. "I agreed to the transfer. I want to come back, don't worry." Her smile faded ever so slightly. "I have work to dom unfinished work. I have my own truths now to try and understand."

Like clouds rolling in over a bright, summer sky, all hint of Mulder's shyness or frivolity fled as his face darkened to a stoic calmness and something inside of his shifted ever so slightly. All of the sudden, Melissa's words of warning about Mulder and what he had been through came back to her, as for an instant she could see exactly what her elder sister was talking about, that darkness and anger that Melissa had found so unnerving.

She should leave it and him to his brooding, move on to something else safer, something lighthearted and silly. She was back now, safe and sound, they could move on. Or could they? She noted how in the last three weeks not a single mention had come from Mulder on work, on the X-files, even on Krycek. He had carefully neglected to tell her about any of it and yet had requested a transfer for her to work with him again. He was avoiding the issue, avoiding the discussion on what happened, on what he thought happened, about why in the hell he blamed himself for it. Mulder's over-whelming sense of personal guilt aside, there was more to the story than Mulder was sharing. Mulder never kept secrets from her. Perhaps he would neglect to tell her when he was planning to do something stupid, but keeping secrets was not something that happened between them. And it frightened her that now he was, deliberately so. And she feared the reason for it perhaps more than the secrets themselves.

"What happened to Krycek, Mulder," she asked simply, waiting for the explosion. But there was none. Mulder averted his stormy gaze from hers, and pretended to busy himself gathering slides, sliding them into the empty carousel in front of him with precise fingers. He was silent for long moments, and Scully wondered if he would answer her at all.

"I should have listened to your good judgment, Scully," His voice soft and low as he slide one cardboard frame after another into the round, slide holder. "You warned me not to trust him. You warned me not to listen to him. You sensed it from the start. You were right. I'm always too quick to listen to anyone who agrees with me."

"What do you mean?" Fear stabbed at her, nameless and troublesome, as something vague nagged at the back of her brain, something Duane Barry had said. It was there and then it was gone. Like everything about that horrible night she couldn't remember anything beyond vague words, images. "We checked out Krycek, you and I. We talked to him, Mulder, he was as clean as a whistle and you told me that. I had Frohike look him up…"

"Well either he is a very good actor or a very enterprising son-of-a-bitch." Mulder rose, carousel tray in hand as he moved effortless towards the slide projector. For all the world he looked calm, collected, in charge of himself. But there was a tension around him, wariness in the air.

"I borrowed Krycek's car to…see someone." Mulder shrugged as he carefully set the tray on its mechanism. "Someone had been in his car, smoking." When Scully was silent, he turned to face her pointedly. "He didn't smoke."

"Okay, well that's not to say someone he knows couldn't have…" Scully began reasonably.

"Morley's. His friend smoked Morley's. Sound familiar to anyone you know?"

"Hell, Mulder, Morley's are popular, anyone could smoke them." She knew whom he was driving at, however, she could see his face as surely as she could smell his smoke. The shadowy figure who tended to lurk around Skinner's office. The man who smoked but had no name, who watched her with his hard, sharp eyes.

"You know as well as I do who smokes those, Scully. And he had everything to do with your abduction."

Something jerked in her consciousness, like a lightning bolt, a gravely voice under a haze of tobacco. _I think she's been through enough, don't you?_

"Mulder, I don't remember what happened," she replied automatically, but she knew that was a lie the moment the words fell from her lips. He had been there, she thought…maybe.

"He admitted as much to me, Scully."

"Admitted as much? You spoke to him?"

"I confronted the son-of-a-bitch in his lair." Mulder didn't look pleased or cocky about it. "He admitted to all of it."

Admitted to all of what? Scully felt her head spinning as she leaned harder against his desk, shaking the vertigo as she tried to comprehend what Mulder was saying. "How do you know he wasn't lying to you?"

"Would a man lie with a Sig Sauer in his face?"

"Mulder!" She was stunned by how utterly nonchalant he said it, as if he, and officer of the law commonly drew guns on unsuspecting people. "Please tell me…"

"I didn't, Scully." Behind the façade lay the tiniest hints of regret and hurt. "I didn't, if that is what you are wondering. But at least you have one of your answers. It's not much, but it's what I have to give you."

Give her, Scully marveled, her eyes burning unexpectedly. "Mulder…I…you don't have to give me anything." She stared up at him, for the first time not just looking at Mulder as if he was her partner and co-worker, but at him. Fox Mulder, a man who had amazing intelligence, incredible wit, and a smile that could melt the iciest of hearts. He did not give friendship or respect lightly or easily, both were earned, and she highly suspected after meeting Phoebe it was the same with his heart. But when you did earn it out of him, it was yours unconditionally and without limits. It was so rare a commodity that Scully couldn't think of anyone save herself who had so much of it in Mulder's very narrow, small life. And he had nearly lost her. She now understood, finally, what her sister was saying. She was beginning to see the pieces of just what her loss meant to him, and to just what lengths he went to get her back.

"Fox..." She didn't care if he did laugh, or snort, or flinch away from using his first name. Hell, her mother and sister had been using it on him for weeks, and she never was allowed. "None of this was your fault. Whatever that man…that cigarette-smoking man told you, it is lies. It was the actions of one crazed man…"

"Do you honestly believe that, Dana?" Since she used his first name, he used hers, and it was both gentle and cutting, challenging her to ask herself that same question. "Think about it. They killed Deep Throat. Why wouldn't they try to take you?"

She stared at him mutely, without a response. She thought of Deep Throat that night, warning it had never been more dangerous. "Why, Mulder, what could they possibly…."

"You proved we didn't need to be an office together to continue this work."

"But I did little more than the occasional autopsy and now and then lent a hand. And these were conventional cases…"

"You flew to Puerto Rico for me," he murmured, slowly pacing forward in the area between them, crossing his arms across the tie laying on his chest. "You plucked me out of a set up I'm sure they would have killed me in."

"Yes, but…"

"Scully, I asked you back for a reason," Mulder stopped only a foot in front of her, well into her comfort zone, the area around herself that she mentally barred everyone from. Everyone, save him it seemed. "For all your arguing, your challenges, your questioning, never once have you ever stopped believing in me personally. You said it yourself at the hospital that day." He reached one long, elegant finger into the space between them, to the golden cross now laying at home once more against the skin of her chest. He pressed it there for a moment, as if branding her with the crossed golden pieces of metal. "You had the strength of my belief, even when I didn't believe in myself."

She stared up at him as he removed his finger and felt the cross burning against her skin. Her fingers moving towards the charm on its chain, holding it tightly, warm from the contact against it.

"I didn't tell you the full impact of what working with me would mean, Scully." His voice was hoarse and rough as he pulled away from her, behind his desk, to his chair, where he collapsed, long legs and bent shoulders. "I never was honest with you about that. I kept thinking eventually you would wise up, you'd get as far and as fast away from Spooky Mulder as you could."

"Mulder..." She turned around to stare at him with half-hearted exasperation. "I'm not an idiot to be coddled. I knew what I was getting into. I told you, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you."

"These are men who will kill indiscriminately, Scully. Presidents, Senators, world leaders, innocent people if they have to. I knew that, and still…" He looked down at the new case file sitting in front of him, so fresh the white folder lacked any of the wrinkling and bending of being well leafed over and picked at. "Still I let you remain involved. I kept going to you even when I knew better. And I am sorry for that, Dana, because it means I'm as responsible for what happened to you as they are. I asked you back because…." He paused, staring at the file in front of him regretfully and somberly. "Because while you were gone, I was a man who couldn't even believe in himself. I had failed you. I had drawn you into this without full disclosure and you paid the price for it. And I did things…many things that I'm not proud of. Things I shouldn't have done." He passed her the file he held on to. She took it with shaking fingers, holding it in front of her.

"Someone died on this case, Scully. I thought I could protect her in a way I could never protect you. She didn't have to die and if I had been in any other state of mind at the time…hell, if you had been there, she probably wouldn't have. She died trying to protect me." He laughed softly, ironically, as he reached for the ever-present basketball on his desk, rolling it between long fingers, his habit when he was disturbed or in thought. "I had to confess that to you, you know. I have to let you know how bad it can get. How bad I can get. I asked you to join me again, but you need to know this time, full disclosure, just what you are getting yourself into with this. If ever there's a time to back out, Scully, it's now. You can walk away from this, from the X-files, from what they did to you and go back to Quantico or to another department and have the career you should have had before you met me. I'll vouch for you, if my word has any worth, and I wouldn't hold it against you if you did, Not in the slightest."

"What if I want to stay, Mulder?" She shifted the file she held to her right hand and holding it to her side, pinning it to her hip just below her gun. "You said it yourself, I have my own truths to find now. I'm as much of an X-file as any one of these cases. I may never know why I was taken or for what purpose. But I now share something with every one of those people you have files on. And I can't just walk away from it." 

She glanced towards his poster, it's horribly bad, blurred photo of a supposed alien space ship in the skies over some nameless area of the country. It reminded her of the divvy little bar in Idaho, with its pictures of UFOs overhead. She had laughed at Mulder that day, for falling for the pictures. But he had gotten the information they needed. It was all a matter of perspective, she realized. There may be UFOs; there may not be UFOs. But that didn't mean that what happened to these people, and to her, was invalid. That it didn't happen. There were truths out there behind all of the disappearances. And perhaps not for her sake, but for the sake of others like her, with the lingering fear, the unanswered questions. She wanted to find those answers, to help them understand. To help Mulder, with his long lost sister, to understand. Because while she may not believe in aliens, she did believe in him and that had been enough to get her home.

"I want to stay, Mulder. There is work to be done, work I want to do." She reached desperately to try to lighten the mood between them, to soften the guilt and hurt Mulder felt. "Besides, I have damn fine investigative skills going to waste over one dead body after another. If I have to do another normal autopsy, I might just cut my wrists with my own scalpel."

He smiled, ever so slightly. "Could it be worse than trying to find out which one of five men is the father of your three children?"

She could see the tension relax visibly as she snorted, nodding her head. "Oh, you'd be surprised. Though certainly there's something to be said about Erica and Dimitri. I could get rather wrapped up in that."

"Wouldn't do a thing for those damn, fine investigative skills you got there, Scully. It would just rot your brain. All that sexual tension and angst can't be good for a person."

"I'm sure that we, as grown professionals, could look around that." She laughed, feeling that maybe, just maybe they could put their feet back on the path they had left off months ago and that perhaps they could be a well-oiled machine again as partners.

"Plan to have your daily fix, sit down here in the office and watch what _All My Children_ is up to next?"

"Why, you watch your porn?"

"I can explain why that video was in the machine."

"How about you don't and we call it a weekend, eh?" Scully shook her head and looking down at the file she had at her side. "I'll take your confessions home with me this weekend. Exorcise your demons for you?"

"I'm not Catholic. I don't go to confession."

"Good thing I am Catholic. I think I can handle your guilt for a few days." She smiled. "Anything I should be wary about."

"Take a look at the LAPD ME's report. One of the suspects burned to a crisp in his own cell the moment sunlight hit his skin, but mysteriously showed up later that night and tried to kill me."

"Vampires?" She was impressed. "Should be enjoyable weekend reading to get me started for Monday?"

"Have fun with it," Mulder murmured as she smiled at him, watching her as she strode towards the door. As she hit the hallway he called after her. "Scully!"

She turned to look back at him behind his desk. "Yeah?"

"Thank you for coming back." He didn't say more than that, but his words held layers of meaning she implicitly understood.

"Thank you, Mulder, for never giving up."

She shot him a last, tight, grateful smile as she turned out of the door and back down the familiar hallway. It still smelled of mildew and mold, dust and dank, but it was strangely comforting. It was home. And she was glad to be back.


	36. Back in the Saddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully realizes she's an X-file.

"Don't you think it's warm in here?" Melissa stood over her sister, pronouncing this with all of certainty that she expected her younger sister to rise from her comfortable couch and actually do something about the temperature.

Scully's response to look up from the LAPD Medical Examiner's report at her sister and nod to her window. "Open the window then." Despite it being Mid-October it was unseasonably warm in Washington, a lovely weekend that called for perhaps a walk through Georgetown, a cup of coffee at a café, perhaps lunch with her sister over salad and chatter.

"It's so nice outside today, Dana. Why are you cooped up in here?" Melissa was obviously restless. Wandering to the newly repaired, large bay window she opened up the blinds and raised the windows, the new frames squeaking and protesting loudly at the force being applied.

Scully tried felt herself shudder involuntarily at the noise, vague images that refused to coalesce, as she shook her head, clearing her brain. She swallowed hard as she curled her feet further under the couch cushions, propping the medical examiner's report on her knees. "I didn't feel like going out."

"Dana, it's been weeks since you left the hospital. You're cleared to work even." Melissa leaned out of the window briefly, tugging a leaf off one of the trees just outside, just starting to turn slightly orange. "And it's fall, you're favorite time of year."

"It's only my favorite because I didn't ever get to see changing leaves till we moved to Baltimore," Scully replied practically, ignoring the leaf her sister waved in her face. Melissa was right, she knew, except for doctor's appointments and a visit to the car dealership to have her finally recovered vehicle looked over before the FBI released it to her custody, Scully hadn't been out at all. She had no reason not to, she realized that. At first she had chalked it up to just desiring to feel comfortable and safe again in the home that had been so horribly violated by Duane Barry, facing her fears down and refusing to relent to the desire to run from that which had frightened and harmed her. Yet there was a small part of her, Scully realized, that was using the apartment to hide as well, from the world outside that had moved on without her in the month she had been gone. One whole month of he life now missing while thing changed and people went about their daily routines. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, a month was a small period of time, mere weeks. Still, it was an aching, empty hole in Scully's life, a period with no memories, no faces, nothing spatially to help her feel that period shift of change. It was blankness, as if her life ceased to exist in that span, even though everyone else had continued to take walks, go to lunches, and sip cups of coffee at Georgetown cafes. It was disconcerting and unnerving. More than anything in her life, Scully wanted normal now, to feel something that was everyday. And at least a run of the mill, strange-as-hell X-file offered her that sort of comfort. She rifled through the Los Angeles Police Department's Medical examiner's report, frowning as she read the description of John Krieger's strange and mysterious "death" in a cell in the Hollywood area holding facility.

"Do you really plan on spending your entire Sunday reading case files?" Sefeated, Melissa meandered to the armchair closest to where Scully sat, flopping in it inelegantly.

"It's one case, Missy, and I don't want to be behind starting tomorrow."

"What trouble could Fox possibly find in one case without you on it?" Melissa raised an auburn eyebrow as she folded her hands across the bodice of her soft, cotton dress, eyeing the paperwork on Scully's lap dubiously.

"Apparently a lot." Scully lifted the report and waved it at her sister. "A vampire cult chasing a young woman around the country on a bloody murder spree that ended in LA." Melissa looked appropriately horrified as Scully tossed the papers on her brand new coffee table, made of wood now rather than glass, reaching for her now lukewarm and slightly stale coffee. "Trouble is Mulder will never know for sure what was going on, the bodies all burned in an explosion. And since the Hollywood Hills were already on fire it took LA County fire far too long to put it out. Their resources were taken up by the wildfires. By the time they even found the victims there wasn't much left to look at." She sighed. Poor Mulder couldn't ever seem to catch a break without her there to hold his hand.

"So where does that leave the case," Melissa wondered, intrigued.

"Well, it leaves Mulder without much of one." She tugged thoughtfully at the case file, sitting by the ME report on the table and opened it up to pull out the black-and-white pictures of the main suspect in the case, Kristen Kilar, the woman Mulder said he had failed to protect. She wondered what it was about the woman that made her partner suspect her innocents. More so, she mused privately, what about her had tugged at Mulder enough to make him feel guilt over her demise in the explosion that destroyed her and the three other suspects in the killings. She was almost too afraid to ask him. She wasn't sure she would be terribly impressed with the answer. Mulder didn't sound particularly impressed with himself. But given the circumstances, she almost wondered if she could blame him. 

"Earth to Dana," Melissa called softly, her laughing finally penetrating through her own dark swirl of thoughts. "You with me over there, sis?"

"Yeah." Scully blinked, setting down Kristen's photo. "Sorry, just…thinking."

Melissa smiled tightly as she watched her, her expression sad. "You're already back there, aren't you?"

"Back where?" Scully frowned at her sister's vague remark, rising with her coffee in hand in the direction of her kitchen and her coffee maker.

"Back at work. Back at the X-files."

Scully tossed her elder sister a flippant frown. "Of course. It took us months of digging, not to mention my convenient disappearance, to get those open again. Where else would I go?"

"Us?" Melissa uttered the word pointedly, rising to follow Scully into the kitchen, hands at her slender waist. "When did Fox's work become 'us'?"

Where did her sister's inquisitiveness come from, Scully wondered irritably? "I've been an assistant on Mulder's work. He even asked for me specifically."

"But that's just it, Dana. It's Fox's work and you're his partner. When did it become 'your' work as well?" Melissa stopped at the kitchen doorway, leaning against it as she watched her sister pour more coffee.

"Why shouldn't it be my work too if I'm his partner?" She moved towards her fridge for the half-and-half inside. "We work as a team, Melissa. It isn't like I do some work for him and he does some work for me. That's what partners at the FBI do."

"But it wasn't why you joined the FBI," Melissa persisted stubbornly as Scully stopped at the open fridge, staring at her sister.

"Since when were you the one to question why I joined the FBI?" Melissa had been, if anything, her first supporter. "You were the one who said life is a path. We have to follow our heart and it will take us where we are supposed to go."

"I did," Melissa admitted, nodding slowly. "But I guess what I'm asking is if this is your heart speaking or if this your own sense of duty."

"Duty?" Scully laughed, pulling out the carton from her refrigerator. "What's wrong with duty?"

"Nothing. We are a Navy family, Dana. I know all about duty. It taught me that duty can make us a blind at times, blind to others needs, blind to our own needs."

"I think I'm being very aware of my needs, Missy. I need to get back to work." Scully poured the thick, white mixture of milk and cream into her coffee, turning it a soft, pale mocha color. "I've already lost a month of my life. And the X-files challenged me more than any other work I've done at the FBI." She sighed as she reached for her sugar bowl.

"I understand that," Melissa conceded. "But I also know you. And I know what Fox did for you. Well, at least some of it." She shrugged thin shoulders as she watched Scully dump her requisite two spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee before stirring.

"I'm not doing this for Mulder." It nettled her that Melissa would imply such.

"You sure?" Melissa pressed, earning the wrath of her younger sister who waved her stirring spoon at her.

"Melissa, I just said I wasn't, God damn it." Irritated, she tossed her spoon into the kitchen sink, perhaps harder than was absolutely necessary. It clattered against the porcelain and into the drain. "I'm…I'm doing this for me, don't you understand?" She practically pleaded with her elder sister. "They took something from me I don't even remember. I don't know who they even were. I came home so deathly sick, I might have died, and with no reason, with no explanation. I don't know why I was taken. I don't know how I got home or why. I…I am an X-file."

Her eyes welled up as she realized suddenly just how loud her voice was carrying in the small area of her apartment kitchen. "I'm a great, unanswered question. And whether Mulder's there or not, there is a part of me that wants to know…will always want to know what happened and why."

Her coffee cup was pried from her small fingers gently, as Melissa wrapped her arms around her suddenly shaking shoulders. Without warning, without even really realizing why, Scully felt herself go quite thoroughly to pieces. Clinging to her elder sister, she sobbed for what felt like hours, crying tears for everything she couldn't remember, for things she thought she remembered, and all of the fear that she didn't realize she still held on to. She sobbed till her eyes were so swollen no further tears leaked out, till her throat was raw and her nose so clogged she couldn't breath. And when she was done she sank, exhausted to the floor, leaning her back against the cabinet under the sink, propping her arms across her bent and raised knees. Melissa immediately settled beside her, reaching over to smooth the damp, coppery hair out of her sister's sweaty and tearful face. It was a gesture so endearingly like their mother's and Scully felt herself leaning into her sister's cool fingers, smiling shakily.

"I knew even you couldn't keep up the façade for ever," Melissa murmured gently, reaching up to the table just long enough to grab a paper napkin and passing it over. Scully accepted it gratefully. 

"Mom was worried you know," Melissa continued as Scully mopped her eyes and blotted her nose. "She wanted to ask you not to go back to work. She was afraid….afraid that Dad might have been right."

Scully visibly flinched, stung to her core by those words, the ones that she herself had been privately thinking since the moment she had awoken from her coma. It pained her to hear them come from her mother, who had stood up for her to her father whenever he had protested about her joining the Bureau. Still, she remained silent, only nodding mutely and snuffling quietly.

"I asked Mom if she would say the same thing about Bill or Charlie in the military, or Dad when he was alive. After all, it's no different, really. Wartime comes, or even just a minor military exercise, and any of them could have been or could be hurt, even killed. And there are many places in the world where the fact that they are US Navy could put them in danger. It's no safer for them than it is for you. And they don't have the benefit of having a relentless partner who will move heaven and earth to try to protect them." She smiled gently, nudging Scully beside her and finally eliciting something of a smile out of her.

"She's scared for you, Dana, I won't deny that. This is the first time you've been in danger, real danger. I won't say I wasn't scared for you myself. Death is a natural thing, it shouldn't be feared, but I can't say that I exactly wanted you to leave me just yet."

"I don't think I'm quite ready to leave you either," Scully managed, stuffily chuckling, glancing sideways at her sister. "And I know Mom is scared. I can't say I'm not. But I can't live my life like that, Missy, frightened all of the time and not trying to understand it. It wasn't how Dad and Mom taught us to be."

"Too much of the Irish in us, I suppose." Melissa chuckled. "I just want you to be sure, very sure, that this is what you want, that this is your decisions to return to work like this and it's not out of gratitude to Fox, or because you feel you must, or because you worry what everyone will think of you. Because no one will respect you less for it."

"I'm not, Missy." Scully sniffled again and blowing her nose into the napkin her sister passed her.

"All right," Melissa encircled her shoulders in a one armed embrace, squeezing them tightly. "I just have to be sure. And so do you."

"I'm sure." Scully scrubbed at her face hard with the heels of her hands, rubbing at her tear-swollen eyes. She managed a wobbly smile for her. "I don't think there are many things in this life I am sure about, but going back to work is one of those." She had to work. She had to find her normal again, whatever normal meant working on the X-files. What a sad, strange statement on her life when the X-files were normal for her. Better, she realized, than cutting up dead bodies all day for a living.

"I want ice cream," Missy muttered, in the sort of tone that indicated she was using it as an excuse to drag her erstwhile sister out of her apartment.

"I have some in the fridge, if you want," Scully began, but Melissa shook her head, stood up, and reached a hand down to her.

"Nope! Come on! We are going down the street. We are going to sit in the unseasonably lovely day, in the bright leaves and warm sunshine, and eat the last, outdoor ice cream of the year."

Scully took Melissa's proffered hand and pulled her body up. "Last outdoor ice cream of the year?"

"Well you don't eat ice cream when it's snowing six inches in January here, do you?"

"No," Scully admitted. "But do we have to go out…"

The look on Melissa's face could have come straight from their mother.

"Right, I'll just go wash my face," Scully replied meekly, sniffing loudly as if to further the point.

"The fresh air will do you good," Melissa called after her as Scully shuffled to the rest room. She hated to admit it when her sister was right. The fresh air would do her good and the ice cream. She laughed. Sisters existed just for moments like these; for good cries and food that was bad for you. It always seemed to make the rough spots go just a little easier.


	37. Potential Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully gets back into the swing of things.

For her first day back at work after a kidnapping, a near-death experience, and months away from the X-files, it started much as any other day would have before the death of Deep Throat.

"Scully, what do you know about JPL?" Mulder barely looked up at her as she entered quietly, still feeling strange and unsure in their old, basement offices. She paused, staring at him as he frowned thoughtfully at his computer, tugging at his lower lip as he squinted through his reading glasses.

"The Jet Propulsion Laboratory?" She assumed that must be what he meant. It was the only JPL she could think of off the top of her head. "It's one of the research arms of NASA. It works on experiments for space and science exploration and develops the technology we use. It's out by Pasadena. I remember, I wanted to visit when we lived in California, but never did." A thought struck her as she pulled Mulder's vampire murders file out of her briefcase and reached to set it down by his elbow, propped on his desk. "And I hope that by asking about it this means we have a case in LA, because I jealous you got to go there and I didn't."

"Wanting to go movie star hunting?" Mulder teased, though he didn't break away from whatever he was looking at on his screen.

"More like I missed the last bit of summer and I would like to catch a bit more sun and sunshine before the weather goes to hell." Despite her love of living in a place that had four seasons regularly, there was something that had to be said for the Southern California lifestyle she had once enjoyed as a child. There you only had two seasons, spring and summer, all year round.

"What, Scully in a bikini? Perish the thought." Mulder at least could break his concentration away long enough to shoot her a teasing glance over his shoulder, before returning to his monitor. "I thought red heads hated the sun."

"Most do, but once in a while it's nice to not feel water-logged and frozen." She moved towards her table, the one she had always had. Never a desk, just a rickety construct of pine and nails made circa 1947 if she were any judge. It occurred to her then that it was strange, despite everything they had been through, despite Mulder's obvious desire for her to be a part of his work, she still didn't have a more permanent workstation to be at. And she had no way of knowing if it was merely oversight on Mulder's part or simply his expectation that if she wanted one, she would requisition one. But then, she reasoned, it probably didn't even occur to Mulder she needed one. Men, she sighed, setting down her computer bag and briefcase, and shucking her overcoat. "So why did you ask about JPL?""

"Potential case," Mulder spun from his monitor towards her, cautiously eager as he leaned back in his chair, looking as if he was home. And he was home, she realized, where he belonged. That fact seemed to ease the nerves and tension still fluttering in her chest as she took her seat across the way, plugging in her computer and turning it on.

"Do you know anything about a geophysicist and roboticist named Daniel Trepkos?"

Scully's still fuzzy memory searched for a face to place with the name. It did sound vaguely familiar, but she wasn't as well versed on the geological sciences as she was in medicine. "You got a picture?"

"As a matter of fact I do." Mulder seemed pleased she asked. He spun back to his computer, clicking his mouse as she rounded her table to come behind him. It felt so odd, she mused, doing this, having him in this close proximity to work with again, able to just have a free back and forth between them. It was certainly better than streams of phone calls and last minute plane flights, trying to manage this without having the benefit of true partnership to aid them.

On the computer monitor, a color photograph was slowly downloading and Mulder began his explanation as pixel by pixel it began to coalesce. "Trepkos is a rockstar in the geo-physics community apparently, some sort of mad genius who NASA snapped up to do work on theoretical geology, things like the composition of other worlds, what went into making ours, stuff like that. Trepkos made headlines a few years back with some of his wilder theories on the creation and formation of the Earth and its crust, something I took note of because he stated that he saw no reason why Earth's environment couldn't be replicated on other worlds, perhaps creating other life forms."

"Sounds like the type of theory you'd latch on to," she teased, watching as the picture formed into a face, a white male with blondish, nearly brunette curly hair and an slightly unkempt beard that seemed to be something of a uniform requirement for all hard-core scientists. It was a sign they cared more about their work than they did about personal hygiene or personal relationships for that matter. She had known a few from her undergraduate days at Maryland. He looked painfully familiar. Where had she seen him before?

"Anyway, Trepkos is best known for creating Firewalker, a robot that he helped to design, one that could actually enter into active volcanoes, further than humans could possibly manage, with the intent that it would gather samples and data, learn more about the creation of earth and how it began. It was a big deal in scientific circles. For Trepkos he could further his research, but NASA was thrilled with the idea of having a potential geological explorer they could sent through the solar system."

"So where's the X-file in all of this?" Scully knew there had to be one, else Mulder wouldn't be interested at all. He had spent far too much time of late away from his beloved cases to waste his time on something that didn't have some unknown element in it.

"Well I'll find out more when Dr. Pierce gets here. He's on a plane right now from LA. He sent me an email last night with his dilemma. Seems Daniel Trepkos and the Firewalker team has gone AWOL. They were up somewhere in the Cascade mountains sending satellite feeds with Firewalkers data and haven't been heard from in weeks. JPL is starting to get worried."

The mountains of Washington State? Why was it always those mountains, she wondered dryly. "And they couldn't go through regular, FBI channels?" Scully couldn't help but be skeptical. They had been here before with NASA officials. The last time with Colonel Belt and the mysteriously sabotaged NASA mission. FWhy it was NASA seemed to think they could simply just show up on Mulder's doorstep and expect a quick fix minus the curiosity of any Congressional oversight committee that would form should they get wind of what was going on.

Congress? She frowned at the picture of Trepkos again. Where had she seen that guy before?

"Yeah, well Pierce says that he's afraid the minute they bring this to the public's knowledge, the Firewalker project will be axed, with nothing to salvage from it." Mulder shrugged, seemingly uncaring that he would be subverting what should be normal channels just to help one JPL research team cover up what could quite possibly be a mother of a mistake. He tugged at his tie thoughtfully and she noticed, with a quiet smile, it was the same blue tie she had purchased for him last Christmas.

"It looks like another trip to the great Pacific Northwest, Scully." He shook his head. Pacific Northwest was beginning to become synonymous to them both with strange and often-bad things happening to them both, everything from CDC quarantines to alien abductions. Scully swallowed as she remembered their first case together and Billy Miles. She cleared her throat as she turned her attention back to the photograph of Trepkos again.

"There's something about him," she murmured out loud. What was it?

"About who?" Mulder glanced from her puzzled expression to the computer screen. "Trepkos?"

"Yeah, like I've seen him before."

"I don't know, perhaps you have?" Mulder shrugged. "He's on television a lot, giving interviews."

"Yeah, I've seen someone on television, but I don't know if it was him." It occurred to her as she realized she had seen this face several times, but not as Daniel Trepkos. She had seen someone incredibly like him all over Washington; in restaurants, on C-SPAN, on the news and at a bar once, very early on when she began working with Mulder. He had the same cocky air about him, the same charming smile."

"There's this guy who works out of the Senate that looks just like Trepkos." She squinted at the monitor as she tied to imagine Trepkos clean-shaven. "Works in the Senate. Is some up and coming Democrat over there." She waved her hand vaguely. She hardly kept up with politics personally outside of the every four years she bothered to cast a Presidential ballot. Mulder was actually the better versed of the two of them and kept up regularly on all sorts of bills going through the hollowed halls of Congress just blocks away from where they worked.

Mulder seemed to recognize whom she was talking about. "I think I know who you mean. He's a floor director for the Senate. I met him a few times speaking to people I know over there."

Mulder knew people in the Senate? As in personally? Scully stared at him in surprise, blinking mildly at him as he stared back.

"What," he shrugged, looking slightly uncomfortable at her obvious shock.

"You know Senators?" She didn't even know who her own Congressional representative was. She wasn't even terribly sure she knew the Congressmen and Senators who represented Maryland, the state her parents lived in. She certainly didn't know their governor at the moment. Perhaps, she realized, that might make her a rather bad servant of the US government. But then, in her self-defense, she didn't have a particular large amount of time to devote to the goings on of lawmaking.

"I know a lot of people, Scully. My father worked in State for forty years. You get to know powerful people when they come over to your house for dinner." He seemed less than impressed. "Anyway, yeah, now that you mention it, I do think I've seen this guy around. Funny how that works. Must be Trepkos's doppelganger."

"His complete look-a-like? Sounds sort of spooky to me." Scully grinned at him. "Besides, I have at least met the guy here in Washington once, I think. I seem to remember he hit on me in a bar."

"Hit on you?" Now it was Mulder's turn to be stunned, eyes widening behind his glasses and his face beamed in positive, boyish delight. "Scully, you never told me this!"

"Why would I have to?" It wasn't as if he discussed every woman who threw themselves at his feet. In fact, he seemed to be trying to avoid the discussion of late.

"I don't know, it's been a while for you since that one guy…with the camera…"

"Ethan," Scully replied blithely.

"Yeah him, and the poor guy you shot down, the divorced one."

"Rod." She wondered if Mulder really had forgotten or was just choosing to ignore the men in her personal life. He had an eidetic memory and little excuse to forget names like that.

"Anyway, a powerful player in Washington, come on, Scully. It would be fun."

"Your definition of fun and mine are two different things. It's bad enough I never get to see my apartment and anyone who prowls the halls of Congress obviously has less time than I do."

"See, Scully, a match made in heaven. You two would be so busy, no one would get their feelings hurt because the other can't spend time with them."

"Is this why you're still single, Mulder?" She bantered back, with a private quiet delight. She had missed this. God, how she had missed this, More than she would ever admit to Mulder.

"I think I'm still single because I've yet to find a woman who puts up with my shit seriously," he replied. "Besides, it's hard to explain to any woman ones obsessions with finding the truth about what happened to his long lost, missing sister. Tends to ruin many a first date."

Scully vaguely wondered if that was the reason Mulder seemed to run through one-night stands like they were going out of style. Less reason to explain yourself, less of a need to quantify why it is that you do what you do. What a sad, terribly lonely existence, she realized.

"I don't know, Mulder. You explained it to me when we first met and I'm still here."

"That you are, Scully." Mulder smiled softly. "God damn, but I'm still not sure why."

She didn't ask him what he meant by that statement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there is a shameless and tongue-in-cheek reference to my second favorite show of all time and one of my favorite characters on it. The same actor plays Trepkos.
> 
> Also a plug for JPL and my current hometown of Pasadena. It's not totally true, we do have a "fall", but we call it winter.


	38. You're One To Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is amused by Mulder calling anyone paranoid.

What was it about the Pacific Northwest that made life a living hell, Scully privately wondered. She eyed the motley crew left from Trepkos's team, Jason Ludwig, the surly, angry robotics engineer, Peter Tanaka, the systems analyst and grad student, Jessie O'Neil. They all watched herself and Mulder with edgy suspicion. Tanaka coughed quietly to himself, while Ludwig felt it best to handle the situation by standing back and glowering at them for no fathomable reason Scully could name. And then there was Jessie, standing off from the group, frightened, worried, and looking more than anything like she wished she had never agreed to go on this trip. Every single one of them looked as if they were the soul survivors of a horrible battle, hollow eyes, nervous titters, so much stress she could practically cut it with a knife. Just how far had Daniel Trepkos gone and just what did he do to his team?

"Scully!" Mulder's low murmur caught her attention as she turned to see him, grim faced as he motioned her into one of the storage rooms just off where they stood. The three watched them go with indifference, too wrapped up in their own misery to care. Scully vaguely understood how they felt.

Mulder ran hands through his dark brown hair, turning to her as she followed behind. "Scully, what do you make of Mr. Trepkos's neighborhood?"

As always, ever the soul of wit when he was disturbed, "What do you mean?"

"Don't you think their behavior is a little bizarre? Almost paranoid?"

She blinked at him for long moments, biting back the urge to make a pot and kettle joke. "Well, considering what they've been through, not especially." She should know, she realized. Just the other day she had spent twenty minutes crying in her sister's arms in her kitchen, breaking down totally and completely from the events that affected her.

"They're practically climbing the walls in there," Mulder insisted.

"Well, they've been living in the middle of nowhere for almost a year. One of their team members is dead, probably at the hands of another. You have to expect some heightened level of emotional distress." She sounded so clinical, as if emotional distress occurred to everyone, everyday. She swallowed hard, fighting to keep her cool composure. It was her first case back and she was not going to lose herself completely no sooner than she was back on the job.

Blessedly, Mulder didn't seem to notice. "No, there's more than that, something they're not telling us."

And he was calling them paranoid. "Based on what?"

"Based on when Ludwig tried to play t-ball with my head. He knew I wasn't Trepkos."

"Now, Mulder, you're sounding paranoid." 

He rolled his eyes at her, but at least didn't argue or storm off. "Pierce knows these people. Let's find out what he thinks."

"Fine. But I don't see the point, Mulder, where are you going with this? These people have been through hell, how do you expect them to react?" Frankly, she thought they were doing fantastically well, especially Jessie. The poor girl looked as if she would crumble in front of them soon, an emotional wreck. Scully's heart went out to her, even more so thanks to her own recent traumatic event.

"You're the scientist, Scully, you know we need to check any and all possibilities." His gazed softened as he frowned in worry. "You still sure you are up to this? After all of what you've been through and now this. If it gets too much…."

"I'm fine, Mulder," she replied automatically, more to stop him talking. She didn't need for him to loose faith in her on this, not so quickly. "I'll be OK. Let's just talk to Pierce. We'll get his perspective on all of this. If he agrees with you on the paranoia, then..."

Then what? What was Mulder really suggesting? "If they are the ones being paranoid, Mulder, what else is going on here? Trepkos is the one they say has gone crazy here.

"I don't know," he replied, puzzled, uncertain. She had forgotten, more often than not Mulder would begin with the hunch and work back to the evidence. "Let me go through what we can of Trepkos's field work, whatever it was the team was able to salvage. Perhaps there are hits there, clues as to what was going on, what tripped him off. I can perhaps create a profile of Trepkos, why it was that he reacted and where possible he is at."

"Get into his head," Scully frowned back out the door, to the party waiting out there, nervous, jittery, scared. The man had done a number on all of them. "You sure you want to do that?"

"I've had to get into the heads of much worse men than Trepkos, Scully. It's what I do, remember." He grimaced. One of these days, when she felt more confident, perhaps when Mulder was nice and drunk, she would ask him about those days when he was a criminal profiler. For now, she let it go with a nod.

"I want to go check out Tanaka and that nasty cough of his. If he's got a virus and we are stuck up here with them, I don't want that spreading to all of us. Last thing we need getting this solved is to have every sick with the flu."

"See if you can get him to open up a bit while you do. Get him away from Ludwig. Maybe he'll give us more information on just what happened between Trepkos and Erickson."

"I might also reach out to Jessie, too," Scully offered, as they began their course and plan of action. "Reach out to her woman to woman, scientist to scientist. Poor kid looks scared and rattled out of her mind and maybe she'll talk to me."

"Being a woman?" Mulder's soft mouth pulled up in a slightly reproaching smile. "And being a man, I can't?" He pretended to look hurt by the suggestion, but she knew better.

"I just don't think she can be pushed too hard at the moment is all Mulder." She replied soothingly. "You handle talking to Pierce and Trepkos's profile and maybe together we can work on Ludwig. He seems a bit much for one of us to handle."

"Especially with the way he wields a pick axe."

"Yes, because of that." She smiled up at him, hands at the waist of the only pair of jeans she owned at the moment that felt comfortable enough to hike up into the mountains of Washington. "Mulder, promise me that for the next few months well try to avoid cases of crazy scientists locked up in remote labs and strange happenings in the Washington State mountains. I'm tired of this place already."

"At least there isn't a quarantine involved this time," Mulder replied helpfully, unconsciously scratching at the skin of his forearm. "No more glowing, green bugs."

"Yes, please."She turned for the door. "I've come back from too much of late, Mulder, to let some weird creature from nature off me."

"Not that I'd let them, Scully."


	39. Mentor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully bonds with Jesse on science and mentors.

It was expeditions like this one that made Scully so very glad she had gone the medical sciences route over that of the research sciences. Many of her former classmates at the University of Maryland had decided to further their education and careers by getting masters and doctorate level degrees, and all of them had been forced to trek far out into the wilds of the Earth, usually in places involving high amounts of heat, mosquitoes, and possible danger. And few of them ever came back with interesting or fun tales to tell of their research work. Despite her endless shifts as a resident doing her rotations before she ended up in pathology, the horrible 48-hour on call days, with no sleep and only bites to eat out of vending machines while constantly on your feet, Scully believed she preferred that to spending months, if not a year or more in a wild place like this, doing scientific research.

Jessie's room was one of the several small, sleeping quarters in the facility, not much bigger than a tiny cubbyhole. It was silent. The girl inside barely moved, but Scully knew she was in there all the same, most likely hiding from the likes of Ludwig and Tanaka, neither of whom seemed to appreciate her presence there overly much. Scully really did feel for Jessie. Even in science it was often a man's world, especially if you were a pretty young girl attached to the chief research scientist. And something about Jessie's nervous, guilty reaction made her suspect the girl was more than just Daniel Trepkos's research assistant.

"Jessie?" She knocked on the door of the room. The girl didn't answer, but she entered anyway, peeking her head around the door. Jessie was sitting on her bunk, staring up at Scully with large, teary eyes, looking as if at any moment she might crumble to pieces at the slightest touch. Much like Scully herself must have looked the other day to her sister, when she had broken down in her arms.

"Jessie, can I talk to you?" She asked gently, moving further in the room and closing the door behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I hate this place," Jessie spat out vehemently, sniffing loudly as she wiped angrily at red, swollen eyes. She was curled up on her bed, her long-sleeved flannel shirt and overall jeans making her look like little more than a four-year-old. It struck Scully just how very young Jessie was, perhaps no more than twenty-four or twenty-five.

Obviously, Scully reasoned, Jessie hated this place for much more than just the dislike of Ludwig and Tanaka. The girl wouldn't be so scared and frightened otherwise. "What happened here, Jessie? You can trust me."

Scully moved beside the girl on the bed. Jessie didn't seem to care one way or the other about her physical presence there. The girl shrugged her shoulders in on herself, as if hoping her flannel shirt could protect her against whatever it was she witnessed while there, trapped in the Cascade Mountains. "After the first descent, Daniel changed. He became withdrawn and paranoid. He locked himself in the lab for three days and wouldn't let any of us in."

Wouldn't let her in, is what Scully heard Jessie silently saying. That was the hidden hurt beneath the girl's words. "Do you think the descent somehow triggered his breakdown?"

"Well, that's what I thought." She rose from the bunk and walked over to a small chest of drawers, containing what was probably all of her worldly possessions up there in the mountains. She removed a plastic pharmacy bottle of pills, half full of medication. "And then I found out he stopped taking his pills." 

She passed the large bottle over to Scully, who glanced quickly at the label. She studied the pharmacological name quickly.

"Lithium carbonate." Not surprising, she thought. Jessie had mentioned earlier that Trepkos suffered form bi-polar disorder and lithium carbonate was a common treatment for it.

Jessie shrugged, hugging herself around her middle as she looked about to tear up again. "Yeah, he said that they were polluting his brain, and he said I was polluting his body." She sobbed slightly, panic etching her face as it crumpled slightly. ""I'm scared. I don't want to die here!"

"What are you so afraid of, Jessie?" Scully spoke soothingly, trying to pull out of the girl just what it was she was so terrified of, why she was so convinced that she herself was going to die.

"Daniel." She uttered it simply and sadly, and with more than a trace of bitterness. "The only reason I even came here was because of him. He promised me that this would be an adventure and that it would change my life. But eight months is a long time and I just want to go home now."

Life changing? That's what all of her research friends had said, that the whole experience would be life changing. Except for Jessie O'Neill it had turned into a terrifying ordeal, a case of just surviving long enough to get out of the woods and into civilization. Poor girl. She had so been in this young woman's shoes once, at her age too. And it had been one of the harder decisions of her life.

"Where is home," she probed softly, curiosity winning out over the needs of the investigation as she pulled her knees up on the bunk, looking up at the girl.

"Anywhere but here," she sighed bitterly, dashing away stray tears. "Though, I guess if you can say I have a home, it's in Colorado. My parents still live there. They're divorced." She shrugged. "My mom and I don't speak much, I guess I blamed her for a lot of what happened with Dad. And Dad…he's Air Force. Always moving. He and my step-mom still live out in Colorado Springs. He's a flight instructor at the Air Force Academy there."

"You sound like me." Scully smiled, feeling true empathy for this poor girl, tossed into a situation she little understood. "I was a Navy brat. Dad ended up a Rear Admiral. I didn't have a home for years, but I guess you can call Baltimore as close of one as any."

For the first time since Scully had met the girl, she smiled, not a large one, but a small acknowledgement of shared companionship. Most military kids had that secret connection, so few outside of their select circle truly understood it.

"Dad was so proud when I got into Cal Tech," Jessie murmured as she pushed herself into the corner of her bed, curling her knees up nearly to her pointy chin. "I had an offer from MIT as well. But I wanted to move to LA, where it was warm, and I thought Pasadena would be a nice place. You ever been to Pasadena?"

"Once, when I was younger. My family lived in San Diego at the time and my Dad got tickets for the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game afterwards. I was more into the floats with the flowers. My brothers were more into the football game."

"Yeah, a lot of people come for that. It's a great place there, you know, Pasadena...LA. But it doesn't seem quite big enough for Daniel, you know." She laughed. "It sounds so funny, there are famous people all over the place in LA, but it just seemed to small even for him. I went to Cal Tech because of him you know. What he was doing with robotics and geology, it was decades ahead of anywhere else, and I had this crazy notion that I wanted to work for NASA and JPL someday. You know, kind of follow in Dad's footsteps, but in my own way?"

Scully understood that all too well. "So you became Daniel's graduate assistant. And I'm guessing," she met Jessie's swollen eyes with knowing understanding. "You were more than just his assistant?"

Jessie blushed a furious red, her eyes flashing away from Scully's to stare at her fingers as she twisted the bit of tissue around and around them "What makes you say that?" She tried to sound coy, but Scully knew better. Call it women's intuition, call it good investigative work, perhaps call it was her own experience. She shrugged as she leaned against the other end of the bunk, watching Jessie frankly.

"I had my own Daniel once…literally. His name was Daniel as well." Scully smiled knowingly. "How did you two get together?"

Jessie quietly studied her quickly shredding Kleenex for several long moments, before shyly shrugging, ducking her head, and smiling, mostly to herself. "He's a genius, you know. Yeah, okay, so perhaps he's not a people person. Most people don't get him. But he's brilliant. It scary how brilliant he is. He sees things and understands thing that most of the rest of us in the scientific community just don't. And I think because of that it's hard sometimes for people to get to know him. Sometimes it makes it hard for him to trust people, to let them in. He feels they'll just hinder his work."

Didn't sound like anyone Scully knew she thought sarcastically, images of Mulder lurking in his basement when she first met him springing to her mind. But she remained silent as Jessie slowly but surely opened up to her and began letting her in, inch by inch.

"I didn't mean to start sleeping with Daniel, you know." She made it sound so matter-of-fact, and perhaps for her it was. "I wanted to learn and I guess more than anything I wanted him to respect me. I looked up to him so much. And I wanted him to think I was his equal I wanted him to respect my mind as well. The sex thing just sort of happened." She gave Scully one of those helpless looks that Scully knew well. Sometimes with physical relationships, that was precisely what happened. You didn't understand it till suddenly you are in each other's beds.

"I knew he had his darker side. I'd seen him in probably the worst of his bi-polar swings. He'd go into the lab, sometimes for days, and you'd have to practically pry food into him. But he would always come around, eventually. I thought that was how it would be up here, that he'd have his good days and bad days, and we would just learn to deal with them, like we always did before." Her chin wobbled dangerously as she bit her lower lip. "I didn't think he'd actually lose it totally." She sobbed as giant tears finally made their way spilling down her thin cheeks and Scully found herself reaching for a tissue on the top of Jessie's small desk, and passing it to the distraught girl with a sympathetic smile.

"I know it's hard, Jessie, but we have to know what happened, why he began to slip, so we can discover what is going on."

"I don't know," Jessie admitted in a choked whisper, shaking her head till her roughly bobbed, brown hair flew around her face. "He'd been working so hard, locked up in his lab. He was supposed to analyze the latest samples. But he wouldn't let anyone in. And finally, Erickson broke in. He was afraid Daniel would hurt himself, or Firewalker, or the data. And Daniel….just snapped. Before we knew it, Erickson was dead and Daniel was gone, out in the forest. And we've been waiting ever since. Waiting and wondering…"

"Wondering if he'll return?"

Jessie nodded fearfully. "He's not right, Agent Scully. He's not being himself. I know Daniel. He would never kill…" She stopped, throwing up her hands helplessly, before letting them fall across her bent knees and leaning her forehead against her crossed arms.

"What happened with your Daniel," Jesse asked after a long moment, her voice muffled into the overalls she was wearing.

"My Daniel?" Scully started, almost chuckling. She hadn't thought of him as her Daniel in a long time. "Well, he was similar to yours. I was in med school. He was he head of cardiology. I was the type of student who was a teacher's pet. I liked to be recognized as a student and I was attracted to highly intelligent, powerful men." It was a story eerily similar to Jessie's own, she realized. "I wanted his praise. I wanted his encouragement and I craved that feeling of approval from him. And I was young. I think I confused those feelings for love at the time."

Jessie peeked her swollen face out from under her arms, leaning her pointy chin where her forehead had been. "How did it end?" Because there was an end and Jessie knew it, and she suspected that Jessie worried about the end she would have to make with Trepkos.

"Well, I found out that my Daniel was still married." Scully grimaced as she recalled the day when she had accidentally overheard Daniel Waterston's wife's message in his office, about the opera tickets for herself, their daughter Maggie, and Daniel. She remembered the sick feeling of dread and horror that came over her as she sat, motionless at Daniel's desk, listening to his wife's airy, breezy voice, completely oblivious of what her husband had been doing with another woman - with her. And she had been foolish enough to believe him when he had told her he and his wife were separated, that he was a man free to pursue others.

"You didn't know he was married," Jessie asked, without judgment.

"No. I thought he and his wife were no longer together. As it turned out, they had been separated once, before he ever met me. But he was the powerful head of the cardiology department at Stanford Medical School, one of the most respected surgeons in his field. It never occurred to me to question him till it was too late." And that had changed everything she realized. "In a way I suppose I should thank Daniel for what he did. It set the path of my life after that. It made me realize some hard and fast things about myself. About why I had attended medical school, and whether I was still happy there, and what else I could possibly do with my life that would make me happy. So I decided to switch courses completely. I did the last of my residency in the pathology unit, and then I joined the FBI."

"Did he ever hate you for your choice," Jessie queried, troubled. Scully knew she wasn't really asking out of curiosity about Scully's own story.

"I think for a time he as angry with me. I think he thought I was wasting my talents, the talents he had helped to develop. Perhaps I wounded his pride a bit, choosing law enforcement over a medical career. I turned my back on everything he had tried to show me, to instill I me. And yet, it was the first very real decisions I had made for myself rather than for someone else. I think it was perhaps the first truly adult decision I had made in my entire life."

Jessie listened intently, worrying her bottom lip between her white teeth. "Do you think that my Daniel will hate me if I were to go back. If I were turn my back on all of this?"

"Jessie..." Scully paused for a moment, considering her words. She didn't want to be cold about this. It was obvious the girl still cared very much for Trepkos. But it was just as obvious he was quite possibly a dangerous murderer and a man who was not in his right mind. Scully shivered slightly as Duane Barry's dark eyes floated into her mind and she pushed them back violently.

"Jessie, I think before we worry about what Daniel may or may not think if you decide to drop studying with him, I believe we need to find him and stop him. If he truly is out to harm anyone else...." She hated to put it so practically, but what else could she say, "Agent Mulder and I are here to investigate what happened. And that may very well mean that Daniel Trepkos is arrested and taken into custody." 

She watched Jessie flinch visibly. It hadn't occurred yet to her that this of course would be the end result of what was going on. "And I think you'll need to decide what is best for you, and not for Daniel. I think he's already made his decisions."

They were harsh words, and Scully hated seeing the dawning realization on Jessie's face as she nodded slowly, new tears filling her eyes. She really was in love with this Trepkos, even if he had ruthlessly murdered someone. But outweighing even that was her fear of what happened, and what could be waiting for her should she stay. Scully had a feeling she knew, if given a choice to stay or go, which way the girl would probably lean.

"Listen, I need to get back to Agent Mulder, but why don't you…"

Mulder's voice was urgent down the hall as she paused, looking up. Leaping from Jessie's bunk, she flew to the door, her partner's anxious face greeting her as he grabbed her arm.

"Tanaka collapsed. I think you need to take a look at him."

Without a word, to Jessie, Scully hurried after Mulder, for the moment talk of mistakes in affairs of the heart forgotten.


	40. Looking Death in the Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully manages to cheat death again.

She hated being left behind.

Scully was never a fan of being coddled while others ran off to do the adventures. She had refused to put up with it as a child and liked it even less as an adult. But Mulder was right, someone needed to find out what the biological entity that had infected Tanaka was and if it was harmful to anyone else. And sadly it wasn't a job that Scully could field off to anyone else. So there she was, test tube in hand, playing the one thing she hated being for Mulder, his lab monkey. Well, she rationalized, at least she was a lab monkey in the field this time instead of holed up in Quantico. And in truth, she didn't think that Mulder would have been able to get Tanaka or this strange spore back to Virginia. She watched as the tube bubbled gently over the burner, picking up her tape recorder and clicking the record button softly as she began to speak.

"I have attempted to culture the spore using temperatures ranging from human basal to those approximating the volcanic interior. I've used nutritive mediums containing human tissue, blood and saliva, even sulfur. However, none of the seven trials have successfully grown the fungus that killed Tanaka. Based on this preliminary data, I've come to the following hypothesis: that unless these spores are ingested or inhaled by the host organism immediately upon their release, they become harmless, effectively dead." 

A conclusion which meant that since none of them had been anywhere near Tanaka when the spore had exploded, none of them were infected. And they could all go home. She smiled softly to herself, realizing that Jessie of all people would appreciate hearing those words. The poor girl had worried herself sick and even now was locked up in her room, waiting for the results of their investigation. It would relieve her to no end to realize she wasn't infected, that indeed she could go back to her father in Colorado and forget this ever happened. Well, Scully theorized thinking of her own experience, at least she could begin to forget.

Jessie's door was shut as Scully knocked on it. There was no answer. She tried opening it as she had before, but found in locked tight.

"What is it," Jessie called finally, sound exhausted, emotionally and physically. Scully understood that all too well, empathizing completely with her.

"I thought you might like to know, chances are good that none of us were infected. We were at a safe distance from Tanaka when the spores scattered and as soon as Mulder and Ludwig come back we can leave. I just need to run a few more tests but I think we're going to be okay."

The girl coughed slightly, but didn't answer.

"Okay, Jessie? Jessie?"

"That's great," she called back limply, though she didn't sound as if she meant it. Scully frowned at the still closed door. She would have thought the girl would be ecstatic at the news. But there were no footsteps rushing to the door, no disbelieving shrieks of joy. Scully waited for several moments more, but when Jessie made no move to speak to her, she turned away. Odd, she thought to herself. Only hours ago Jessie had been dying to get out of this place, to return home, frightened she may die there. Now she seemed unenthusiastic at best. Perhaps the idea of leaving Trepkos, no matter what he had done or what he had discovered bothered the girl more than her fright over what was going on. In a way she could understand that. She still remembered how nervous and worried she was at telling Daniel Waterston about her decision to leave medicine for the FBI. And yet, even though she knew he had lied to her, to his wife, to his daughter and committed a sin Scully in her own way found unforgivable, she had still loved him once. And it had hurt to tell him that she was leaving, even in the end it was a good decision.

Well, perhaps a good decision, she mused ruefully, in light of her recent abduction.

Returning to the lab, she grabbed the now cooled test tube and brought it over to the microscope, pulling out a fine syringe to gather a small amount of material to study. Dropping it onto the film, she slid it under the powerful lens and bent down over the ocular eyepiece, peering inside. She had just adjusted it to the setting she needed, allowing the sample to come into focus, when the lights flickered, dimmed and then went out.

What in the hell was causing that problem, she groused, frowning as she looked up. Glancing about the laboratory table, she found her flashlight, the one she had brought with her in her pack. She had learned her lesson in cases with Mulder. It pays to always be prepared for any eventuality, especially ones in creepy, dark places. Grabbing it, she moved back towards the living area, perhaps there the electrical switchbox could be found. She may be a woman, but she knew a few things; how to switch out fuses, how to work a circuit breaker, and how to do it without getting killed. Now if only she could manage to change her car tires and her own oil, she might be able to truly call herself an independent woman. 

The switchbox was by the living quarters. Made of simple breakers, after a few test switches, none of which bore fruit, finally she found the one that needed tripping, and the lights came on again, blazing into the dimness. That's how she noticed the shadow over her shoulder. Perhaps it was her recent bout with Duane Barry starring into her living room window. Scully didn't believe she could move that fast or jump that high. She spun on Jessie who stood there, obviously in pain, her face sweating as her eyes pleaded with Scully to do something.

"Oh God, Jessie!" She frowned at the girl who still said nothing. She paused, watching her. "Jessie? What's wrong?"

Jessie said nothing, only grimaced.

"Jessie?"

The girl was taller than Scully and had greater leverage. She caught Scully by surprise. Pushing her towards one of the nearby tables, she neatly produced Scully's own pair of handcuffs and snapped it around Scully's wrist before linking the other end around her own/

"Jessie," she gasped, confused. "What are you doing?"

It was then that Scully saw the pulsating lump forming in Jessie's throat.

For the briefest of moments, it was as if time had stopped. Jessie had been infected, she realized, and at an earlier time. Most likely with Tanaka and probably so had Jason Ludwig, who was out with Mulder. The entire crew was infected, all of them, but how and by what, she didn't know. It all made horrible sense now, Trepkos's strange behavior, the paranoia of the crew, the death of Tanaka, and for a moment, Scully had the realization of perfect clarity and she wondered if this was how Mulder felt when suddenly everything fit together. Perhaps she would have been elated if she weren't staring certain death in the face. Because, she realized right now that was exactly what she was doing. She would die from these strange spores that would be released from Jessie's throat. After all that she had been through, after surviving whatever strange, foreign illness she had been infected with, after her kidnap, her lost memories, after coming back from the dead, literally, she would die like this? Killed at the hands of some sort of freakish adaptation of nature?

Like hell she was going to let that happen, she realized angrily, as she viciously yanked Jessie with more strength than she realized she had. Dragging the choking girl behind her, she pulled her to one of the workstations, grabbing a pickaxe used for their work and brought it down heavily on the chain that linked the two of them, praying she didn't manage to gouge herself in the process.

The thick links of steel were the best that the FBI could pay for and they didn't budge under the pickaxe. It scratched the links, but did not break them. Scully swore, as beside her Jessie groaned and gasped, her perspiring face turning a shade of grayish blue. She was losing oxygen by what was growing in her throat, cutting off her windpipe and thus her air supply. Soon the invading entity would burst through the skin of Jessie's tender throat, tearing out her esophagus and cutting off her ability to breath. Jessie was going to die. There was no way around that. And for what it was worth, it broke Scully's heart that she would. But it didn't mean she was going to allow herself to become a victim.

There was a containment chamber in the next room. Scully had spotted it and asked Ludwig what it was used for. Their rock samples were worked on in there, free from the contagions of the more open space. Thinking quickly, she stooped to throw Jessie over her own small shoulders, using her height to her advantage to pick up the girl. Though Jessie was tall, she wasn't heavy, and Scully thought she could manage her long enough to shepherd her into the next room. Rushing with her hanging, gagging over her shoulders, she slammed open the door of the Plexiglas containment cell, unceremoniously dumping Jessie inside. The girl landed hard on the floor, choking and wheezing, a dead weight that nearly pulled Scully over with her. She righted herself long enough to grab the Plexiglas doors, slam it shut, hard, as it caught on the chain that linked her hand to Jessie's. The door bent the links, but did not cut them, as the latch snapped shut, catching Scully's wrist beside it. With all of her own weight, she leaned against the door, hoping that it would be enough to keep the spores inside.

Jessie managed to scramble up from her fall, and began pounding on the glass, her fists causing Scully's head to vibrate and bounce, as her small hands pressed her entire weight onto the door, the rubber souls of her feet pushing hard against the concrete. She was not going to die this way; she refused to do it, not after everything that she had been through. Now wasn't her time, now wasn't when she was supposed to go.

Jessie stopped pounding and Scully looked up to see the girl stumble back as the skin on her throat stretch and pulled in an impossible fashion. It tightened on a hard, pointed end, that quickly poked through the flesh and skin, tearing open the girl's throat, shooting spores out into the air of the room as it coated the walls, the floors, the Plexiglas door, and Jessie's own glassy eyed face. A fine yellowish dust settled on everything, as Scully sank to the ground, watching it, her breath coming hard and fast as she tried to decide whether to laugh or cry.

She had survived. But Jessie had not.

In the distance, Mulder's voice rang through the silence of the woods. He was safe, at least. But did he bring Ludwig back with him?

"Scully!" Mulder's voice sounded loudly in the lab, as his gaze frantic as he looked for her. He looked nearly ready to pass out from relief the moment he saw her curled up by the containment room.

"I'm okay! I'm okay," she reassured, as much to herself as to him.

"Are you all right?" He rushed over to her, his fingers reaching gently for her, face as frightened as she had recalled ever seeing on Mulder. So soon after everything else that had happened, she could only imagine what was going through his mind.

"I'm okay," she reiterated, glancing up at the cuffs that still linked her to Jessie. Without a word, he reached for his own set of keys and unlocked her wrist, freeing her hand as he watched her, quietly demanding to know if she was sure she was OK.

"Yeah," she breathed, rubbing her now tender wrist and taking Mulder's extended hand to help rise again and stand. She turned back towards the Plexiglas door and stared sadly at the crumpled body of Jessie O'Neill, her face fixed in painful horror as the invading fungus jutted from her ruined throat.

"Look." Scully motioned to the girl, saddened to sickness staring at her. "She was infected. I don't know how."

"Erickson was the original host." Mulder supplied heavily and she looked up at him. "When the fungus shed its spores, everyone was at ground zero…except for Trepkos."

Of course, Scully realized belatedly. Because he was in one of his manic phases, hidden in his lab. That was why he was hiding.

"Did you find him," she asked, though she already knew the answer. Of course he did. That was how Mulder pieced it together.

Behind her, someone's footsteps shuffled in.

Daniel Trepkos looked less like the cocky, self-assured scientist she had originally seen in the picture back in Washington and more like a man who had just escaped from a demonic, guerilla war. His hair was dark with sweat and soot, and his cheeks were singed black, the skin burned dark on either side of his face. He didn't seem to care. He shuffled into the lab, Mulder's gun limp in his hand as he set it carelessly on the nearest flat surface. He had eyes only for the chamber where she and Mulder stood, and he sank to his knees in front of it, placing his hands flat against the glass, still covered in yellowish spores. He silently looked over Jessie's crumpled body.

"I told her it would change her life," he murmured, his voice hollow, as he leaned his forehead against the door, well-muscled shoulders slumping in defeat. Scully watched him for a long, silent moment, as it occurred to her that Jessie's infatuation with her mentor was not all one sided. Brilliant, insightful, lonely Daniel Trepkos had let only few people into his circle and this girl had been one of them. He had lost her forever, in what should have been a perfectly safe trip. Scully thought of Mulder then and of what her sister had said. Would he have been as crushed as Trepkos if she had indeed never returned, or worse, if she had died in the hospital after she had returned?

Mulder shifted behind her and she watched as he moved across the room to the team's radio, their only link to the outside world. He flipped switches, and picked up the microphone, opening up a channel to contact Search and Rescue. "Search and Rescue, this is Agent Mulder. Do you copy?"

Static followed his words briefly, as at the other end, a distorted, thin voice replied."This is Army Biohazard. How many are in your party?"

Biohazard? Scully frowned. How had they known anything was wrong up here? Unless, she reasoned, the CDC had just assumed after their last jaunt up into the Washington forest that too many weird things lived in the woods not to have one and had placed a permanent team there. Twice they had dealt with the Army Biohazard team in several months. They were getting to be regulars.

"We have two survivors," Mulder replied, as Scully stared at him sharply. He ignored her. "Agent Scully and myself."

"Copy that. Our ETA is ten minutes." The voice cut out,as Mulder turned to Scully's stunned face. She glanced at the unmoving figure of Trepkos, watching vigil over Jessie, then back at Mulder.

"Mulder, what are you doing? They're going to want to question him?"

Mulder shook his head gravely as he glanced at Trepkos, sympathy and deep, painful understanding written all over his face. "It's all over, Scully. He won't talk."

In silent reply, Trepkos turned his head enough to glance at Mulder, his ruined cheeks damp with quiet tears. Then he turned away from them both, as if they both ceased to exist for him in that moment. Perhaps, Scully wondered, they both had. For Trepkos, his entire world, his work, and the only person he cared for and trusted, were all gone. He had nothing left to live for really.

Mulder touched her shoulder nodding towards her scattered equipment cluttering the table she had been working at. "Get your things, Scully. I'll meet you outside."

"What are you going to do?"

He glanced towards Trepkos. "Help him out of here."

"I'm not leaving without her," Trepkos murmured. "She came here because of me."

Mulder frowned, torn about what to do.

"She's not contagious now," Scully replied to Mulder's unspoken question, filling him in on the information she had discovered. "The spores are only infectious right after they are exposed. After prolonged contact outside of the human host, they die and become non-viable." She sighed sadly as she looked to Jessie. "I had just told her that when this happened."

"Can he take her then?" 

In the distance, Scully thought she could hear the far off sound of beating helicopter wings. "Yes, he should be fine."

Trepkos rose, pulling open the door, ignoring the fine dust that covered everything. Gently, ever so carefully, he picked up Jessie's limp form, cradling her in his bare, singed arms. For a brief moment he looked towards Mulder, a look passing between them that she neither understood nor was privy to. Then quietly, Trepkos turned from them both, and bore his sad burden away with him, Jessie's dark head bobbing limply as he walked. Scully felt her eyes brim as she watched him go, her heart breaking for the girl who had so much promise and who had followed him out of love and a desire to impress him. Jessie had lost everything following Trepkos and he had lost everything by allowing her to come.

"Scully." Mulder's fingers wrapped softly around her shoulder. "Get your things packed. We'll have to go. And I don't think the Army is going to let us keep much of anything."

"Right." She nodded, as the sound of helicopters grew in the distance. She turned to her worktable somberly,where her scattered notes and equipment lay, gathering them up one by one and stowing them in her backpack. She glanced sideways at Mulder, who grabbed his own bag and then snagged his gun from the table where Trepkos had laid it. Melissa had told her he had been through hell while she was gone. And that hell could have been oh so much worse, she realized sorrowfully. Perhaps, she chided herself as she gathered her things, she should become less disgruntled when Mulder asked her to take it easy, to be careful to take time, as he had when this case began. It was too heartbreaking to think of him ever in Daniel Trepkos's shoes.


	41. Chiefs Versus Broncos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully and Mulder discuss feelings while watching football.

Another click-this time the evening news. Dan Rather she thought.

Click again. A football game, loud and raucous. Here the clicking stopped and it sounded as if the television was set to stay on a Monday night game. Scully looked up at the face of the announcer, Al Michaels, as they came back from a commercial break, pattering to the camera about some sort of statistic involving yardage and scoring. She glanced sideways at Mulder, who was stretched out lengthwise on his cot in Army issued sweats, happily settling in for an evening of mind numbing, testosterone laced, helmet crashing football goodness.

Not to mention the cheerleaders, she reminded herself. How did those women fit into those skimpy, spandex outfits? How did they even get them on?

"Whose playing?" She continued to flip through the last pages of the report Mulder had hand written in preparation for their eventual release from the quarantine the Army had forced them to undergo. All of their evidence and data had been taken, of course, but Mulder had insisted on being allowed to at least write his report for FBI purposes so that they could eventually close the case when they got out. The Army hadn't exactly acquiesced. They had handed him a notebook and pen and told him he could use that till they were allowed to get near a computer again, sometime in another two weeks.

"Huh?" Mulder made the ubiquitous, grunting noise that all men seemed to use as a form of communication when a sporting event was on television. Scully resisted the urge to toss her pencil at his dark head where it lay on his pillow.

"I asked whose playing?" She could of course look up at the screen and find out, but she didn't want to get sucked into something as numbingly distracting as a football game.

"Chiefs and Broncos," Mulder replied, his eyes not even flickering from the screen.

"Which team does John Elway play for?" She knew something of football. Well, only just something. She had of course heard of John Elway because he had played college football at Stanford University, where she had studied for her medical degree. He was something of a god there now and in fact he was the only football player she could reliably recall from memory. She thought he played for the Denver Broncos, but in all honesty, she couldn't be sure.

"He plays for Denver." Mulder turned his head to shoot her a cheeky grin. "That's the team in orange and blue."

"I get that." Scully could at least tell from the horse on the side of the bright, blue helmets the team wore. "And I'm guessing the team with red helmets and the white arrowhead with the letters KC in it is the Kansas City Chiefs?"

"See, it's not so hard." He ignored her dirty look as he pointed at the screen to a Chiefs player. "Their quarterback is Joe Montana." The way he uttered the man's name, you would have thought he was a cross between the Pope and the Dali Lama, the football equivalent of Jesus Christ on Earth. Mulder whistled low under his breath. "Man is the greatest quarterback to ever live. Can't believe the Chiefs got him."

"I know who Montana is," Scully replied archly. She wasn't that big of an idiot. "I did live in Palo Alto once and he won four Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers, including Super Bowl XXIII and XXIV." She grinned brightly as he stared at her, his mouth hanging open in wide, startled astonishment.

"You've been watching that video I gave you at the hospital," he breathed in shock.

She giggled, hating to admit it. "I was so bored, I even watched that. But seriously, I'm not so big an idiot I don't know Joe Montana, Mulder. Who doesn't know him?"

"You're catching on, Scully. Maybe soon I'll teach you about what a touchdown is."

"Watch it, Mulder, or I'll take away all TV privileges for the night," she groused irritably, not really meaning it. After two weeks of being cooped up together, literally, in the same small space in a Washington State Army base, Scully had now been through every sports debate and complaint possible with Mulder. She had listened to his tirade against the cancellation of that year's World Series in baseball. She had patiently pretended to care about his worries over Patrick Ewing and his beloved Knicks. She had now sat through two weekends of endless, back-to-back football games, with Thursday to Monday filled to the gills with more gridiron action that even she had thought was possible. She now knew that Mulder followed the Washington Redskins as his professional football team, and though he hadn't gone to college in the US, he had a soft spot for Boston College's football team, the one New England based team the Massachusetts kid actually liked. Frankly, she had enough sports coverage to last her a lifetime.

"Would you rather I watch something else?" Mulder's tone was mild, but she could sense an underlying testiness. She wisely shook her head in the negative.

"No, no…I don't care." She really didn't. In some ways, she found it strangely comforting. So much of her personal life was spent in solitude, herself, her books, and her work; it was odd having another person sharing the same living space as her. Even if it was just Mulder, and it was only temporary.

"Because if it is bothering you," he began to insist, waving the remote at her.

"I don't care, Mulder, honestly I don't." She smiled at him, holding up the yellow legal pad covered in the chicken scratch he called handwriting. "I'm reading your report, remember?"

"How's that going for you?" He sounded sympathetic. He wasn't precisely thrilled with the lack of evidence they had been forced to accept thanks to the military's interference. They had tried to keep what they could, but even their backpacks and all of their personal belongings had been confiscated. Fears of contamination the Army had said. Fears of what Trepkos had found Mulder said. Scully wasn't so sure she quiet bought into Mulder's paranoid theories, but she did find it somewhat suspicious that the Army was the ones who responded to their Search and Rescue call, and so quickly and thoroughly too.

"Well I think with what we have Skinner will be sympathetic. After all, one can't argue with the US Army when they decide to stick their nose in it." She tried not to sound too cynical, but couldn't help herself. She was a Navy brat through and through, with an ingrained distrust of the Army and their methods. The classic rivalry between the two military branches tended to color her judgment from time to time regarding some of their actions.

"After all," she concluded as she set Mulder's notes down across her knees, covered in similar sweats as Mulder's, sized for a female soldier. "Our objective wasn't to find out what it was that Trepkos discovered, our objective was discover what happened to the team. We did that. They were infected by an unknown pathogen which eventually killed them."

"We don't have evidence of the fungus or the spores though." Mulder scowled at the television. "The Army has all of it and I can guarantee it will never see the light of day."

"No, we don't. But Skinner can't exactly deny there was something up there that concerned the Army enough to keep two of his agents in quarantine for four weeks. They wouldn't just do that for no reason." She tried to put a helpful spin on it for Mulder.

He obviously wasn't biting. "We had Trepkos's notes. We had your samples. Trepkos knew what it meant, he told me so himself. He found evidence of a life form that we little understood, which could change theories on life and its evolution on this planet forever. It could change the entire way we look at the way life is created period."

"As in aliens," Scully teased lightly, though she knew it was more than that.

"As in everything, Scully." Mulder sat up, turning to her with shining eyes. "You as a scientist should appreciate what it would mean a silicon based life form. All our concepts of what it would take to create any life, perhaps even intelligent life would be thrown out the window. We would have to start looking at the universe in a whole new way."

"And yet Trepkos, rather than bringing this to light, took the only other evidence with him back to the mountains." Scully leaned back on her cot, curling herself around her single pillow. "Maybe Trepkos knew the danger that lay in digging to deep into the Earth's secrets. You might not like what you find there."

Mulder paused, relenting as he nodded his dark head, leaning his elbows on his knees. "He warned me about that. He said some truths are best left buried." He didn't look happy with that answer.

"They said Trepkos was a visionary. Perhaps he was also wise enough to know when human kind was getting ahead of itself." Scully admitted that often as a doctor, a woman of science, she often relied perhaps a tad too much on her reason and not enough on the mysteries of the universe. So proud of Firewalker were those scientists and engineers, they didn't even stop to consider that they were not just venturing in to where no other scientist had been before, they were also studying things they little knew or understood. It seemed fate that she and Mulder saw this pattern form again and again in their cases, first in Alaska, then in Washington. She had to wonder about her fellow scientists at times and the hubris they showed when relying too heavily on the certainty of their own knowledge.

Mulder was equally thoughtful, studying the hard, concrete floor in the bunks the Army had assigned for them. "Trepkos asked me something particularly poignant while I as with him." He glanced up through dark lashes up at where Scully lay curled on her side. "He said, 'You still believe you can petition heaven and get some penetrating answer.' Then he asked if I found that answer, what would I do with it?"

Funny, Scully thought to herself. It was as if Trepkos could read Mulder's mind, or maybe what was more accurate, perhaps Trepkos recognized in Mulder a kindred spirit. IPerhaps he was giving Mulder a sort of warning.

"Do you think he was trying to tell you something," she asked, as Mulder shrugged frowning as he considered it.

"I don't know. Maybe. Perhaps it was a warning to anyone in general who dares to go where no man has gone before, hoping to find great secrets. Maybe you'll find more truths than you bargained for."

"Maybe," Scully sighed. "It's still a lesson perhaps you should carry with you, Mulder. If you found your truth, your ultimate truth…what would you do with it?"

She wondered if anyone had ever posed that question to Mulder before. He looked slightly stumped, an odd look for Mulder ever to wear. "I don't know," he replied honestly.

"Certainly something to consider," she sighed, her attention flickering briefly to the television. It was halftime of the game and the announcers were chatting back and forth about highlights of the night thus far. She expected Mulder to return to watching, to settle back on his cot and forget all thoughtful work for the evening. Instead he remained sitting on the edge of his bed, watching her. She could feel his gaze steady, like lasers on her skin.

"Did I grow a football out of my head, Mulder?" She grinned at him as she flicked her gaze back over to him.

"No," he replied without even a smile, a sure sign of grave thoughts ahead. His teeth nibbled briefly on his bottom lip before he spoke. "There was a moment, when I was with Trepkos, when I realized what was going on, what was happening with the spores." His fingers drummed nervously on his knees and he refused to meet her questioning gaze, instead studying the plain, gray cotton fleece as he cleared his throat nervously. "When I realized what he was saying, that those spores were infecting everyone, changing them…killing them."

Without him having to say it, she knew exactly why it was he looked so frantic and relieved the moment he saw her, alive, chained to Jessie O'Neill's dead wrist. She herself had thought for the briefest of moments that she wouldn't make it either. That after everything that she had been through, she might just die after all on her first case back on the X-files. What would Mulder have done then? What would he have told her family? The thought of her mother's face, to hear that her daughter had died on a case involving strange fungi so soon after her daughter's mysterious disappearance and illness. It might be more than Maggie could take. Scully shivered, clutching the pillow she hugged tightly to her middle.

"Scully, I shouldn't have brought you out here, not so soon after everything," Mulder shook his head. "I should have made you stay in DC and not involved you in this."

She knew this argument was coming. She was surprised it had taken him this long to start it. "And what would you have done with Tanaka's body if I hadn't come? You wouldn't have been able to have anyone proficient enough to do the autopsy, let alone run the tests, and trying to send the samples to me in DC would have cost you time, maybe your own life."

"You nearly died, Scully…again. And and while I am fond of you, two bio-hazard containments in a year is enough to make anyone think twice about dragging themselves out here, let alone a partner."

"I'm fine, Mulder." She did not mean to shut him up or to cut him out. She meant that she really was fine, she was alive. She was okay. "I think it's time everyone I care for starts to realize that I'm not some delicate little flower, ready to break at a moments notice." She needed everyone to start realizing that, she thought to herself. She could never get back her life till she felt that others had confidence in her.

"I won't say for a moment I didn't see my own death there in Jessie's face." Poor Jessie, unable to breathe, eyes already glazed in death as the fungus tried its best to use her as a tool to propagate. The girl had so much to live for, and yet Scully was the one who made it. "All I could keep thinking, Mulder, was that I had been through so much already; my abduction, my illness, getting well. I wasn't going to allow this to take me too after all of that. I refused. It's not my time. Not yet." She shook her head, half a memory of her father whispering those very words to her brimming in the surface of her memory. "I suppose there is something to be said about a sheer, stubborn will to live."

For long moments Mulder watched her, solemn, before he breathed a low whistle and threw himself backwards on the cot restlessly. The gray t-shirt with "Army" emblazoned on it in black rode up slightly across his stomach and he scratched idly at the now exposed, bare skin. It occurred to her that Mulder was disgustingly fit, with the sort of athletic grace one never usually got to see when he was dressed in his Bureau uniform of suit and tie. She supposed exercise was something to do when you couldn't sleep at night and she doubted in the last few months Mulder had been able to get much of any sleep.

"Damn it all, Scully, if something had happened…"

"It didn't, Mulder. No more than it's happened to you yet. How do you think I feel when you run off on some other hair-brained scheme and are being chased by military police?" Now, she thought with slight triumph, Mulder knew how she felt when she was on the receiving end of things, "Idaho at Ellens Air Force Base? How about North Carolina, while your life's blood was pouring out of a leg wound and I was desperately trying to staunch it till the paramedics came."

He raised his head enough to look at her, heavy lidded eyes narrowing. "I only nearly died one of those times."

"Puerto Rico," she shot back coolly, eyebrows raised.

"I was just dehydrated." He dropped his head again.

"And delirious." She had thought him dead. "Jesus, Mulder, if I hadn't gotten you out of there, the military would have had you dead, if not arrested and brought to trial. And don't think for a moment I wasn't terrified from the moment Skinner called me into his office and said you were missing."

"You were scared for little old me, Scully?" Mulder's voice was muffled from where he lay on the bed.

"Well…yeah." Why wouldn't she be, she reasoned, as she contemplated throwing her pillow at him in sheer irritation? Best not, she thought, she might not get it back if Mulder felt perverse enough. "Mulder, I consider you a friend, one of my closest friends. I don't put myself out for just anyone. And if you had died, or been captured, or lost, do you think I would feel the pain any less than you would have had something happened to me?"

He was silent from his cot. She knew he was listening though.

"The X-files might be your mission, Mulder, but you aren't on this alone. Not anymore. And we're both going to face danger on this. You and I knew that the minute they gave us the oath at graduation from Quantico, it's what we do as FBI agents. But it's better we have someone to back us up in cases like this, because if we didn't both of us could be dead right now. And then I wouldn't be stuck in the lovely, wonderful, Cascade Mountains with you once again, in yet another bio-hazard lock down, watching a football game."

Mulder raised his head again, this time smiling slightly. "What is it with this mountain range anyway, Scully? Twice in one year?"

"You're the one picking the cases, Mulder. You tell me." She snorted, snuggling further around her pillow.

"I think we should stay away from the state of Washington for a while. Go someplace with less trees and volcanoes around."

"I thought you were the one who liked nature." She had suffered unmerciful teasing at his hands because of her love of the creature comforts civilization offered her.

"I think nature and I have had as much enjoyment of one another as I can stand for a while." He sat up, long enough to right himself lengthwise on the bed again and lay back down on his cot, looking up at the television. "Still, if I had to be in a bio-hazard containment facility again, I'm glad at least I was stuck with you."

"Why's that?" She almost feared asking that question. Knowing Mulder it would be some horribly childish answer about her having a nice ass or getting to sleep with her every night, despite the eight feet of space between their separated cots.

He surprised her though. "'Cause if you are stuck in the middle of the woods with nothing better to do than watch football, it's always nice to have a friend along. Pity they don't give us beer though."

"Just don't expect this to be a habit. I'm humoring you with the football because I know it will sedate you."

"I'll get you to a game one day, Scully. You'll like it. Cold air, the drama of the gridiron."

"I've seen football. My brothers played."

"You were in the marching band, weren't you?"

"How do you know I wasn't a cheerleader?" She couldn't help jabbing him, just a bit.

Mulder couldn't have looked more stunned by the idea if he had tried. "Don't tease a man like that, Scully, not when he's stuck with you in one space for another two weeks."

"Somehow I think you'll survive." She flipped to her own back and stretching out her short limbs, placing her pillow behind her head. "Who do you think will win the game?"

"Denver. Elway's younger, hungrier, has better knees at the moment. Chiefs have Marcus Allen and Montana, but they're past their prime."

"I don't knowm I always thought Joe Montana was cute."

You could cut Mulder's disdain with a knife as he turned his head to stare at her, horrified. "What does him being cute have to do with football?"

"Maybe he'll win is all I'm saying."

"Is that how you picked teams in high school?"

"I was sixteen and they were boys in tight spandex. What do you think?"

He rolled his eyes, clearly horrified at her lack of serious, football acumen.

"I bet that the Chiefs win this game," Scully threw out, for no real reason than to just be argumentative with Mulder.

"Why? Because Joe is cute?"

"That comment really bugged the hell out of you, didn't it?" She grinned wickedly at him.

"Shut up, Scully, and let a man enjoy his football game."

"You are no fun, Mulder."

His response was to mutter to himself something about taking her to a game and teaching her what real football was about. She chuckled. It was going to be a long two weeks for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This dates me. I remember this very, exact football game. I watched it. It's fairly well-known and hit the right time and now I am sad because I'm that old. Full disclosure: I am a loud and proud member of the Chiefs Kingdom.


	42. Return to Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully wakes up and contemplates life in a stream of thought.

Life was good when you could lay in your own bed, luxuriate in your own sheets, and snuggle into your own blankets and simply enjoy a late morning sleeping in. Scully hugged one of her down pillows tighter, breathing in the scent of freshly laundered linens. For the moment she was relishing the small pleasure of being home, of being comfortable, of life being just as it should be. Well, as much as her life ever got to "should be". Her eyes wandered open slowly as she glanced at her clock. She was half-an-hour late drowsing up this morning, something that would normally guilt her into rushing out of bed with apologies to Mulder on her lips. But today, she decided, he could hang himself. After a month locked up together in one small, confined space, she sure as hell didn't feel like being nice to him or guilt for being late. This morning was for her, to get back into her routines, to find the normal again in her life. Heaven knew she hadn't had anything close to normal in her life for the past few months and damn it she deserved normal.

She rolled over in her bed, squirming further into the pillow top of her mattress, burying her head under the piles of down, waiting patiently for the insistent alarm to finally rouse her out of bed. It did, unfortunately, a loud, piercing noise that crept through her soft cushions and comfortable blankets, and insisted that she get up from her wonderful nest to rise for yet another day of work. Work…yes…that thing one did in an office...well, most normal people did in an office at least. She found that more and more she did it in forests, in labs, and in other strangest areas well away from the small table she had in Mulder's dank basement. And to be honest, after months of grunt work at Quantico, she couldn't say she minded. She had climbed the walls of her well lit, well apportioned office at the FBI Academy, dying for a way to get out of there, back in the field with Mulder. But there was only so much of forests, near-death experiences, and medical quarantines a person could take before they just wanted the creatures comforts of their own shower, their own coffee, the morning paper, the mind-numbing drive to work. These were all things she had nearly lost, she realized, these mundane aspects of her life. And she cherished them now, even to the rattle of the morning news, which she flipped on as she slowly drug herself out of her bed. Her morning showers were her one quiet, thoughtful times, all to herself, sans Mulder's occasional morning phone calls on cases. Did that man ever sleep? Who calls at 6 AM in the morning wondering about Bigfoot sightings in Georgia?

Her white tiled bathroom began to steam as she spun the shower knob on and she groggily stripped out of her pajamas, kicking them to the floor as she carefully stepped into her antique tub. She was usually a bath sort of girl. She loved to luxuriate in steam and foam after a long day at the office, with candles and a book. So much of her day, her world really, was made up of hard, cool, professional Agent Dana Scully, a woman in a man's world. She enjoyed those moments when she could relax, soaking in scented soap bubbles, Chopin playing in the background. She never admitted to Mulder she did that sort of thing, but then she guessed he probably already knew. After all he was the one who first broke down the door on Eugene Tooms when he had crawled in on her running a bath. Her skin crawled slightly as the needle sharp points of hot water stung it and she glanced involuntarily back towards the door, making sure no shadow crept in through the faint morning light. Damn, first mutants, then abductees. Who would invade her home and sanctuary next? Serial killers?

She shampooed her hair into lather, rinsing the red mass till the water ran clear, feeling a momentary prick of vanity. She wasn't what she would call a conventionally attractive woman, too short by far; she was always envious of Melissa's height and willowy figure. She had gotten the short, stumpy Scully genes; stubby legs, not even tall enough to meet Mulder eye-to-eye when in conversation. Most men preferred taller women, legs that ran for a mile and giant breasts the size of cantaloupes attached to rail thin bodies. The best Scully could hope for was someone who didn't mind petite and pretty. Perhaps not stunning, she wouldn't call herself that. She was a tad too pale, her chin a smidge too pointy. She lacked the classic beauty that most men, such as Mulder, seemed to throw themselves at with the sort of reckless abandon that they usually only reserved for sports, pizza, and beer. But she had at least one crowning glory that was her hair, coppery red and the compliment to her fair skin. Other women had to go to a bottle to get the color she possessed naturally, an inheritance from her father's nearly purely Celtic background. Not even Melissa, whose hair was much darker in hue, could claim the sort of striking, Titian locks she had all of her life. While she had suffered years as a girl with awkward braces, teenage acne, and all the humiliation of remaining short while all of her female friends developed thin, womanly figures. She Dana at least could claim she had better hair than all of the rest of them. It at least made her stand out to the opposite sex, something that got her noticed by men when her figure and height did not.

Her one vanity, she laughed, as she stepped out of the shower and toweled her damp hair dry. Perhaps she should have it styled soon, it had been a while, at least since she had gotten out of the hospital. Her hair had been a mess then, one of the first things she had managed to do on her own was to have her hair cut so that she felt like a human being once again. Now after a month in quarantine, it was looking shaggy once more. Not that anyone outside of herself cared. Since her resurrection from the dead, most at the Hoover Building had avoided her like the plague. Whether it was because of the awkwardness of her abduction story, or the improbability of her return, Scully couldn't say. Her work contact had dwindled from the occasional chats with other agents in the hallways, to now banter across the basement office with Mulder. How had her life narrowed so much she wondered thoughtfully? 

She turned the blow dryer on. When she had joined the X-files a year-and-a-half before, she had a bevy of professional friends and colleagues, people she met for lunch, for drinks after work, who she would run into in the hallways and discuss cases with. Now, she was eyed suspiciously, with the name "Mrs. Spooky" muttered in stage whispers in her wake. And it wasn't as if she even believed in aliens or the supernatural. It was simply the fact that she stood up for Mulder when no one else would. That, and the fact that she came back when everyone else gave her up for dead. She wondered if that curiosity would ever go away. Obviously, other agents in the FBI had faced this sort of thing as well, period when they had been abducted, taken, injured, even had to go deep undercover and do things so horrific that some questioned if they could ever really return to active duty again. They were lauded as heroes by most and looked on with respect and appreciation. She was given the cold shoulder and treated as if she had a nasty case of leprosy.

She flipped her dryer off, brushing through her very warm hair with her fingers as she wrapped her robe around herself tightly and scooped up her pajamas from the floor. Depositing them in the laundry basket, she padded towards her kitchen, where already the coffee was beginning to brew. She smiled happily as it wafted to her nostrils and she grabbed her mug from the dish rack by the sink. To hell with her co-workers, she thought as the scent of roasted beans cheered her. She poured herself a cup, reaching for the refrigerator and creamer, and turning to her sugar bowl with expert ease. It was nice to do the small things again. She smiled, humming softly, if inexpertly to herself. She had never had much of a singing voice and usually only ever inflicted the sound of it on herself as she puttered around her house. Coffee mug in hand, she returned to her bedroom, flipping on the radio to the sound of morning news chattering as she pulled clothing from her closet. Black suit, white blouse and cute shoes. She grinned ruefully at the collection of high heeled, professional looking loafers, all much taller than was practical for a field agent in the FBI. Scully couldn't help herself, really, she never could, and shoes were her one vice. The higher the better. Standing only 5'3, she had early on began to train herself to stand and walk for hours in her shoes, much to Mulder's everlasting confusion and chagrin. Mulder worried too much about everything. Really, she could handle three inches of plastic holding her feet at an impossible angle off the ground. She wanted to see him try wearing these things one of these days, see how far he got.

A disturbing image of Mulder dressed in women's clothes and high heels popped into her brain, and she snorted loudly, nearly choking on the coffee she was sipping. Dear God, that was scary. She giggled, a true X-file if ever there was one. Snickering, she mindlessly tuned into the news of the day, the new Republican led House of Representatives angry at the Democratic White House for yet some other inane reason, Marion Barry's re-election as Mayor of Washington DC despite alleged drug abuse, and the latest traffic snarl that she mentally remembered to avoid on her way to work. The world was getting weirder and weirder she sighed as she dressed, and it wouldn't be long before the cases that had, at one time, been mocked as X-files wouldn't seem so strange and foreign to everyone anymore.

Or not, she sighed, moving into her bathroom to arrange her hair and apply her scant make up. She frowned at her reflection briefly, smoothing her eyebrows out with one finger as she reached for her make up. Scully had never been much for over doing her cosmetics and it took her less than five minutes to finish her morning routine. Teenage Dana would have been horrified by that fact. She had spent hours in her bathroom trying to look cool and cute for school, fearful of what would happen to her fragile, woman-child ego if she stepped out the door with her hair less than perfect, her clothes not the right style for acceptability with her peer group. When had that changed in her, she wondered? Medical school, perhaps, when she had been too tired of a day to care and wearing medical scrubs besides? Maybe when she joined Mulder and had ceased to care about the way people smirked when she walked past them, the knowing looks they gave each other as she moved through the halls.

No, she still cared about those, she admitted to herself sullenly as she gave her red hair another swipe. The appellation of "Mrs. Spooky", first uttered to her by Tom Colton, irritated her certainly, but it didn't anger her nearly as much as the winks and smiles that passed when she was in the company of Mulder. Honestly, that infuriated her. Not that Scully was any sort of prude, despite her Catholic upbringing, but it upset her that her colleagues would focus so much on what she may or may not be doing with her partner outside of the office rather than the real work they were doing in it. Yes, perhaps she didn't buy into aliens, psychics, or monsters, and she did desire to throw everything in small, easily marked boxes that she could point at as evidence. But that didn't mean she didn't believe in their work and didn't care for it passionately. She wasn't in the basement office out of gratitude, or pride, or even a good fuck. God knew when the last time she had one of those was, she grumbled, as she slipped her shoes on and flipped the radio off. Ethan? Maybe. He hadn't exactly been the best of lovers. Sweet, yes, and romantic even, but not exactly thoughtful or ardent. God, Ethan had been forever ago, she sighed with a bit of regret as she wandered back into her kitchen, emptying her coffee cup as she made a beeline for the waiting pot. 

Filled and replenished, she sipped it black this time as she contemplated whether it was toast or an apple for breakfast. Her slacks tugged slightly at her waist, still slightly touched by the weight she had gained in her abduction experience. Grimacing, she reached for the fruit bowl, pulling the apple off the top and crunching it thoughtfully. She needed to go for a run tonight, get back into the routine she had before she had been taken. She wasn't as fanatical about exercise as Mulder was, that she admitted. For Mulder she wondered if exercise was a bit like his porn collection, a mindless exercise that he used to distract his overactive brain enough that he could actually relax and de-rez for a bit. He didn't think she knew why he had the sort of adult collection that would make any sleazy porn shop owner proud, but she did. It didn't take a psychologist to figure that one out. For all of Mulder's witty comments and teenage humor, he wasn't as big of a lecher as he let on…well, no more than the average man who fantasized about large-breasted women in nurses uniforms. Sure, she imagined he got the same kick out of it any other guy did, but it struck Scully as being much more an exercise in shutting down, much like when she curled up in the bath with a good book. She never thought she'd compare Jane Austen and porn in the same breath. 

She finished her coffee, munching her apple and moving towards her desk. Her notes on their excursion to the Cascade Mountains were neatly gathered, as was the case file on Daniel Trepkos's Firewalker team. She stowed those neatly into her briefcase, beside her laptop computer. She snagged her firearm, sitting harmlessly by her desktop computer where she had sat working the night before and slipped the holster snugly onto the waist band of her slacks, pulling her blouse and jacket over it discreetly. Her badge went into her case with her paperwork, and she turned towards the door to check that her overcoat hung waiting for her as she prepared to exit the door.

"Ouch," she hissed, fingernail catching on the strap of her bag as she lifted it to her shoulder. He grimaced as her index finger went automatically to her mouth, and she sucked it briefly, Goddamn that hurt, she whimpered, as she looked at the nail. Nothing was damaged, but the weight of her case had caught on the new acrylic, tugging at the roots of her real nail as the sturdier fake tip had been yanked. Well, no damage she thought, as she wrung her hand slightly. She'd hate to have to explain to her manicurist why she had snapped a tip after only three days. But it was nice to have her nails done. She smiled, as she grabbed her coat and checked for her keys. There was something that made her feel as if she had finally come back around to where she needed to be, that the world was right again now that she had her nails done, her hair done, and was feeling like Dana Scully again. The specter of her missing weeks wasn't gone, and Scully doubted it ever would be. But it was fading, ever so slowly, as she put the bits and pieces of her life back together again, as she found that normal center where she could retreat when the strange stuff hit the fan. She would at least be put together, she would at least be okay, and through that she could always have a sense of calm normal to retreat to, a way of tuning out the strangeness of the world and the people in it.

Because Mulder seemed to find the most interesting people all of the time, she smiled, as she moved out into the hallway, ready to start her day. She wondered what sort of odd case he had dug up for them today. Hopefully something that involved her staying out of jeans and out of the woods for a while and close enough to home she could sleep in her own bed once in a blue moon. She sighed wistfully as she closed the door of her apartment and turned her foot towards the outside world and new day. It was good getting back to normal, she though to herself as she wrapped her overcoat against the bluster of fall outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a note, I am fully aware Gillian is not a real red head. I am, however, and it was always a point of pride for me that Scully was a red head. After all, not many of us are portrayed on television and usually not the female lead. So, in my head canon, Scully is a natural red head even if the actress isn't.


	43. Thanksgiving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder gets the gift of pie.

"How was the Scully family reunion at 'ye-old-homestead'?" Mulder hung up the receiver for the large, black phone as she entered the office, eyeing the large, homemade pumpkin pie Scully carried carefully in her right hand as she set down her bags down at her table with her left.

"Loud." Scully held up the pie in front of Mulder with a large smile. "The whole gang was in for Thanksgiving, from Bill to Charlie, and I'll say this, I'm very glad that they are both in the Navy and out of my hair."

"Brotherly love smothering you?" Mulder smiled, though his eyes never fluttered far from the silver pie tin that even covered smelled of spiced pumpkin.

"More like choking me, or should I say choking Bill, which is what I wanted to do." She rolled her eyes, before placing the large dessert squarely in the middle of Mulder's cluttered desk space, teasingly grinning at his wide-eyed surprise. "With my mother's compliments, Mulder. She was disappointed you turned down her invitation."

As she suspected, Mulder nearly began drooling at the sight of orange filling and golden piecrust. Most men would kill for a perfect piece of pie and her mother's pies were exceptional. Already she could see him trying to figure out where in the piles of paperwork, photographs, and unused paper napkins he had possibly hidden a plastic fork.

"She makes it hard for me to feel guilty if she's sending me a whole pie."He began rifling through his desk drawers. Scully had hoped he'd at least wait till lunch, but had a funny feeling that Mulder was just restraining himself from eating the whole damn thing with his hands and that was only for her sake. She snorted as she turned from him, moving to her bags at her desk and began setting up her computer for the day.

"Mom was disappointed. She thought you would sit at home, starving, with only a Hungry Man turkey dinner and a bottle of scotch for company on Thanksgiving."

"What's wrong with that?" With a small cheer of victory he pulled out a dubiously clean plastic fork, brandishing it in momentary satisfaction. He began pulling the plastic wrap off the top of her mother's dessert. Scully smirked. She had a feeling this wasn't going to be pretty.

"Mom can't stand the though of a grown man being alone for any holiday involving food." She tried not to snort too loudly as Mulder dug a large forkful of pie right from the center, happily swallowing it with hardly the benefit of chewing. "And she is convinced that despite being a grown man, you never eat anything good for you and need a home cooked meal once in a while."

Mulder mumbled something in agreement, but she couldn't make it out past the next two, giant mouthfuls of pumpkin pie he consumed. Already a quarter of the pastry was gone, consumed in giant scoops that boggled Scully's imagination. Boys, she silently shook her head. What was it with men in her life of late, turning into over-protective, unclean, knuckle dragging Neanderthals?

"Sorry, Mulder, I couldn't catch what you said around the 'nummy-nummy' sounds you were making."

He swallowed, licking piecrust crumbs off his lips. "I said your mother didn't need to worry, Scully. It's by far not the first major holiday in my life that my mother has left me stranded alone. Besides, I had people to spend the holiday with."

"And how are Frohike, Langley and Byers doing?" she smiled sweetly as she pulled up their report on the Daniel Trepkos case.

"Byers went to spend the holiday with his parents. Frohike made turkey. Man's a halfway decent cook." Mulder dug into the pie once more, with gusto. "Though he couldn't bake one of these."

"You could have eaten more of that if you had taken Mom up on her offer." She wouldn't admit it, but it had slightly nettled her that Mulder had wholesale turned down her mother's invitation, a gift that Maggie Scully didn't pass to just anyone. It was a something that Maggie only offered to those she felt truly belonged at the table with the close knit Scully clan and after all the terrible weeks that summer, with her missing and her mother fearing the worst, it was Mulder who had stood at her mother's side and comforted her. Maggie would never say it in a million years, but it had stung just a little that Mulder had turned down her offer for Thanksgiving dinner with her family. And if she admitted it, Scully was a tad disappointed that he hadn't come along herself.

Mulder's inhalation of her mother's pie slowed as guilt took the edge off his hunger. He glanced at Scully remorsefully as he set the pie tin aside. "I didn't mean to insult your mother's kindness. It's just that I thought, with your brothers in town, and after everything that has happened, perhaps it wasn't the place for me to come barging in."

There was some truth to that, thinking of her elder brother and the "discussion" he had had with her. Bill pleaded to think of their mother, of what her job was doing to her every time she was in danger. Even her latest quarantine in Washington had terrified her, even though Scully was perfectly fine and was only there as a precaution. Still, he had taken it upon himself to give her "the talk", the one her father would have given her had he still been alive. Not even gone a year and Bill was trying to fill his shoes. And Scully knew he meant well by it, her brother loved her. But she highly doubted Ahab would have cornered her the way Bill did, and in such a patronizing fashion as well. She replied as pleasantly as she could, given the circumstances. It was Thanksgiving, it was a family holiday, and her mother had all of her children, miraculously, under one roof. She didn't need the entire clan to spend the day bickering.

"Turkey eating your brain, Scully?" Mulder teased, but with a small, worried frown all of the same. He was watching her as she stared in dazed thought at her screen, unaware for a moment that Mulder had even been speaking to her.

"I'm sorry." She blinked, shaking her head, "Just…thinking. Long weekend with family." She shrugged. "I suppose I know what you mean about barging in. Still, Mom was sad you weren't there. I think she's taken a liking to you."

"Most mother's take a liking to me, till they get to know me," Mulder muttered. "Still, few of them ever ply me with home baked goods."

"Well you can have more if you want. Mom has a standing invitation for Christmas as well, if you are up to it." An invitation to her family's home for the holidays. It wasn't exactly something that Scully asked coworkers to do, except for Jack the one she had actually dated. Yet her mother was right, Mulder had proven himself to be more than just the partner who drug her hither and yon from case to case, but a true friend, a man who had stood by her family when no one else would. It was for that if for nothing else, Mulder deserved a place at the Scully table. Perhaps in a way they considered him more family than his own parents did.

Much as she expected, Mulder demurred at the suggestion, becoming interested in picking at the pie idly with his plastic fork. "Scully, it's not that I'm not honored by your mom's invitation." He sighed, stabbing the thin, plastic fork into the pumpkin custard, where it stood upright like a signal beacon.

"But you feel strange coming over to my mother's house for a tasty dinner?"

"I feel it's wrong for me to take up your families beneficence when I am the reason you were taken in the first place. Your mother cried on my shoulder the night you were taken, begging me for answers on why anyone would do this to you, and now I'm supposed to sit there at the table, eating admittedly amazing pie, and pretend that what happened to you didn't?"

"Mulder, I don't think anyone is asking you to pretend," she began.

"Fine conversation to have over the turkey then, explaining to your brothers why it is I let their sister get taken?"

"They don't believe that," she said, though she wasn't particularly sure if that statement was all together true. Bill could be unpredictable at the best of times and she knew, without him saying it, he held Mulder at least partially responsible for her disappearance. Why that was she wasn't particularly sure. But Bill always did have friends and ears in the FBI he used to check up on her, filtering reports to their father when the elder Bill Scully had not bothered to speak to her himself. She didn't doubt that Bill had used those connections to prod into just what had happened to his baby sister and had drawn his own conclusions accordingly.

Whatever the case, Mulder looked dubious as he reached for his coffee mug. "Thank your mother for the pie." It was obvious he was done with the conversation.

"At least consider Christmas," she urged, not even sure why she was pushing so hard. "Mom's here for the holiday and it will be only Missy and I. Bill and Tara are spending it with her parents and Charlie won't be able to get leave. I think she would be happy to see you."

Mulder busied himself with pulling the plastic wrapping back over the mutilated pie, pulling the fork out and covering the dessert carefully. She knew he was avoiding her questioning look as he shrugged his shoulders lazily. "I'll think about it, Scully. I don't know if I'll be conned to go to North Carolina again with Mom or not."

She knew he was lying, but that she wasn't going to get him to agree to anything today. Leaving the subject, she returned to the report on her computer. "I've finished the Trepkos report for Skinner. I'll turn it in later this morning."

"Good, because I think we have a case." Mulder switched gears so fast, Scully had to pause a moment before realizing what it was he was referring to. "How do you feel about a weekend in Minnesota?"

"In general or with you?" She had a feeling that it was the latter and by the mischievous gleam that appeared in the depths of Mulder's eyes, he was hiding something about this weekend she almost didn't want to know about.

"Minnesota isn't such a bad place, Scully. Land of ten thousand lakes."

"It's November, Mulder. It's cold."

"Good ice fishing," he offered genially.

"I think I'll pass. What's going on in Minnesota you are dragging me away from a perfectly lovely weekend of holiday shopping to go and investigate?"

"Got a call from the Minneapolis field office. They say they have a dead alien abductee on their hands." He seemed more amused than excited or intrigued. "They say it displays all the classic signs."

"I take it you don't take them at their word?"

"Scully, getting a call from any agent other than you stating they've fond an alien abductee causes me to question just what the hell is going on? I don't know a single person in the Bureau who takes it seriously and chances are this is a bored field agent who wants to pull the wool over old Spooky's eyes." And still he seemed to find it funny that they were being called at all. There was something else afoot in Mulder's planned excursion to Minneapolis.

"Why do I smell a rat in all of this, Mulder?" She glanced at her printer as the Trepkos report printed page-by-page.

"Come on, Scully. I promise, if you don't have fun I'll take you shopping to that new, fancy mall they have there, the one with the roller coaster."

"Why do I need a roller coaster in my mall?"

"You can buy shoes," he offered hopefully. It was a sure sign he had something planned. He was trying to bribe her with consumer therapy.

"I don't need shoes, Mulder, I have plenty." She arched an eyebrow sideways at him. "You don't think this is a serious alien case, do you?"

"No, but I'm willing to go out there and take a look, if nothing else to give the field office a boost with it. We'll be back by Monday at the latest. I'll even give you two days next week to do all of the holiday shopping your heart could possibly want."

"You drive a hard bargain." She smirked, glancing over her printed pages. "Fine, what time does our flight leave?" She knew he already had it booked. That was most likely why he was on the phone when she entered the office.

"Seven AM tomorrow. Dulles." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You don't mind getting in late on Sunday night, do you?" There was that all too innocent look in his eyes again.

"Not particularly. Why?" Something was up. Was there a UFO convention in Minneapolis this weekend he had neglected to tell her about, perhaps a concert? Hell, she wasn't even sure she knew what sort of music Mulder liked listening to.

"Oh, no reason." He shrugged all too nonchalantly. "You have anything maroon and gold colored?"

He shut up once the pencil flew past his left ear.


	44. This is About Football

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully realizes just how uncomfortable she feels on this case.

She had never quelled at the sight of the dead. Not since she was a child and had accidentally killed a rabbit, leaving it in a box in the basement, well away from the prying eyes of Bill. She hadn't meant for her smuggled pet to die. By the time she had gotten to it days later, was already covered in maggots and flies. Death from that moment on ceased to have any mystery for Scully. When the heart ceased to function and the brain died, the body began its slow process of decay, breaking down into its component parts. If she were lucky, and if the death were suspicious, she would have time to arrest that process long enough to discover the means by which the body was murdered, before some funeral home somewhere got a hold of it and burned it or filled it full of chemicals and dressed it in some strange parody of life. The human being that once lived inside this shell of muscles and tissue often was a secondary thought to Scully's mind as she worked out the details of their untimely demise.

It wasn't that she didn't consider them a person, or that she didn't muse from time to time on the truth of these people's existence and the injustice of their deaths. In actuality it was usually what kept her going when the sight of so much blood and gore exhausted her of a day. She cared deeply about them and who they were, else she wouldn't keep doing the job that she did. But as an investigator she had to keep the same level of detachment while in the autopsy lab as she did when working a field case, to not let emotions cloud her judgement.

Somehow, emotions were the only things she could find, as she looked down at the poor, mutilated corpse, freshly dug from the quiet grave in the silent, rainy churchyard. Her Catholic propriety was outraged by the sight, a desecration to ones body in holy soil. The woman had been dead for some time before the attack. Someone had viciously savaged the corpse after her loved ones had placed her in the ground, had waited till all of those who cared for her as a person had left so they could perform the deed. What must have been a head full of lovely hair was shorn, her fingers hacked off, as if she were nothing more than a slab of meat to be cut off of and tossed aside once done, as if she hadn't been living once, with a family that cared for her and missed her now that her presence was no longer there. Scully shivered slightly in the cold breeze that swirled and danced through the gravestones.

"I hate to disappoint you, Agent Bocks," Mulder drawled quietly beside her, his face grim but unsurprised. "But this doesn't look like the work of aliens to me."

The wiry, grizzled, middle aged agent, Moe Bocks, raised surprised and disappointed eyebrows at Mulder, clearly sad that his theory on alien abduction was shot down by the one man in the Bureau he had been sure would believe him. "No? How can you be sure?"

Scully glanced sideways at Mulder. She suspected he had known all along it wasn't the case. Why had he gone along with this anyway?

"I've seen this kind of thing before. When I was with the Violent Crime Section." Even Scully forgot sometimes Mulder had seen the worst of humanity in a variety of different murders and mutilations. It was little wonder he took refuge in the X-files. "Whoever dug this up probably used a backhoe. If you took casts of the ground in the area, you'd probably lift some clean new tracks off the garage around here somewhere."

"You think?" Bocks sounded as if the thought hadn't occurred to him before. Mulder exchanged a brief, rueful glance with her. Frankly she didn't blame Mulder for his amusement. One didn't get to be an agent with the FBI without knowing some basic procedures and investigative techniques. It was small wonder that if Bocks couldn't figure out how to do casts on tire tracks, he believed whoever did this crime was an alien. No, aliens did other crimes, she thought as her mouth went dry. Crimes of abduction, not crimes of grave digging, ones where they stole your memories, not your fingernails. She thumbed her index fingernail, still sore and bruised from where she had caught it on her briefcase the other day, the acrylic nail smooth and slick against the pad of her thumb, edge of it blunt and thick as she ran it down the length.

"He may work here, but it's not likely." Mulder continued, his active mind already beginning to spin the profile of their criminal with little more information than the body and a few tire tracks to go on. It was rare she got to see Mulder actually work through what he was good at, getting into the brains of criminals. He seemed to slip into the role with such ease, something she as an investigator had to work at. "Though he's probably worked at a cemetery or a mortuary at one time or another. Probably been busted before, but you're not going to find any record of it. Not real good for business when these stories get around." Mulder knelt briefly, studying the body with a detached eye, the dirt around it and the tracks leading off to the distance. He rose, lifting the tarp that had been covering the body carefully over it.

"You're saying some human did this?" Bocks sounded more shocked that it was another human being doing this to another, rather than a strange, foreign alien creature doing this to someone's corpse.

"If you want to call him that." Mulder sighed ruefully, eyes narrowing sadly at Bock. It made sense to Scully, frankly, this all sounded disturbingly like a conversation she and Mulder would normally have over a body, except for a change Mulder sounded like she did and Bocks was the one jumping to strange conclusions. The older agent was clearly embarrassed.

"Well don't I feel like a dumb butt." Bock smacked his forehead with his hand in what might have been a comical gesture, if it weren't for the gruesome sight at their feet. Scully chanced another glance at the body, where the tarp didn't quite cover it. The poor woman, minus hair and fingertips, mutilated for no reason. She shuddered suddenly, jumping slightly at Mulder's hand at the small of her back. She turned up to look at him as he jerked his head towards their rental car parked below, Bocks staying behind, giving quiet orders to the Minneapolis PD who stood nearby.

She didn't need to tell Mulder how upsetting the entire scene was to her. Mulder, with his keen perception, already knew. He cast worried, sideways glances at her as they approached the car.

"You okay, Scully?" He had that look that said that he wanted to send her home again. Would this be the habit on every case they had, until he got it through his thick skull she was all right. She nodded quietly, trying to shrug off the dread that had filled her since seeing the open grave and the ruined body.

"Yeah." she tried to repress the shiver that would just go away. "I've read about cases of desecrating the dead, but this is the first time I've seen one." Funny, she thought to herself, there were those who would call what she did as desecrating the dead, cutting them open and studying their insides. But she always performed her job with reverence and always tried to return the body into as much of a semblance of what it was before she had opened it up. She tried to give dignity to the dead. This had nothing to do with dignity or with reverence, but with simple, vicious want and control. That girl had been no more human to whoever did this than she had been to those who took Scully.

That was an odd conclusion she realized, nearly stopping as she walk as it occurred to her what she had just thought to herself. Where did that come from?

"Nothing can prepare you for it. It's almost impossible to imagine." Mulder was sympathetic and it took her a long moment to remember just what they had been speaking about. He would know, of course, he would understand. She wondered just how many such cases he had been drug on, with mutilated bodies, devoid of thought or care for who it was that victim had once been in life.

"Why do they do it?" It was unfathomable to her why anyone with an ounce of human compassion would do such a thing to anyone. There was something horribly foreign and alien to her, though it had nothing to do with flying ships and strange lights.

"Some people collect salt and pepper shakers. The fetishist collects dead things, hair, fingernails. No one quite knows why." Mulder shrugged, shooting her a wry smile. "Though I've never quite understood salt and pepper shakers myself."

She stared at him as they neared the car, surprised at his humor in the face of it. Mulder always did have a tendency to fall back on his wit when faced with something stressful or dark in his life. But to be so flippant about it, even despite it all, it was something she wondered if she could ever manage as an investigator. "Sometimes you surprise me, Mulder."

He opened her car door for her, clearly confused at her statement. "Why?"

She stepped inside the car, as Mulder closed the door behind her, and rounded the end of the vehicle to enter the driver's side himself. "How that didn't shock you back there?" It had shocked her and she cut up dead bodies for a living. Mulder got standing in the doorway of her autopsy bay and usually avoided going inside and looking at anything.

"I prepared myself before we left Washington," he admitted, passing her a folder she didn't know he had. She flipped it open. It was filled with details on the case. Why hadn't he allowed her a chance to look at it before they had come?

"You knew it wasn't UFO related from the start." She glanced accusingly at him. He didn't shy away from it, shrugging as he started the engine and flipped on the wiper blades. The rubber against the glass began to squeak loudly.

"I had suspected as much," he replied in a placating fashion. There was that mischievous look again and that feeling Scully had that there was much more to this trip than simply Mulder's desire to get out of the office and see a mutilated corpse in a graveyard. He had asked her to give up her weekend, her Saturday to come out there with him for something as disturbing as this, knowing it had nothing to do with an X-file or the work they did. For what?

Her temper got the better of her, as she peevishly glared at the rain-covered windshield, realizing she had fallen for something and unsure of what she had just agreed to. "Mulder, we flew three hours to get here. Our plane doesn't leave until tomorrow night. If you suspected, why…"

He reached into the front of his overcoat, and from inside produce two, oblong pieces of paper, bright purple and gold. "Vikings versus Redskins, in the Metrodome." He announced gleefully, passing the tickets over to Scully's disbelieving fingers. "Forty yard line, Scully. You and me."

"A football game," she found herself asking stupidly, staring at the logo of the Minnesota Vikings team, a stylized, blond mustachioed warrior with a winged helmet on his head.

"Yeah! I got the idea when we were in quarantine and I thought you would like to go to a football game together. I can explain it to you, we could get some beer, and I brought my Redskin's sweatshirt so we can be hated by all of the overweight, drunk, angry men dressed up like some reject from a Wagnerian opera."

He looked so delighted by the very idea of it, Scully almost hated to tell him no.

"Mulder," she began, rolling her eyes, and reaching up fingers to rub the spot just above the bridge of her nose. It began to ache dully in her forehead, her pulse throbbing there. "You drug me out to Minnesota, on a Saturday, just so you could go watching a football game?"

"I thought you would like it," he replied, a certain sad, petulance creeping into his euphoric humor. He sounded like a small child who had just been told his collection of bugs and snakes he had so painstakingly gathered and presented was gross and disgusting. There were times when Scully forgot that in many ways Mulder was still just a twelve-year-old boy trapped in a thirty-four-year-old man's body. And just like any twelve-year-old, he needed coddling and a pat on the head to make the disappointment go away.

"It's not that I don't want to go, Mulder, but I thought we had a case," she began, as already his bright, green eyes were dulling to a disappointed gray, his long fingers moved to snag the tickets from her fingers.

"Took a lot of maneuvering with Danny to snag those tickets, too," Mulder grumbled quietly as he took them back, clearly upset he wouldn't be able to use them.

"Mulder," she moaned, now feeling the guilt of ruining his surprise on top of the irritation of being drug out there under false pretenses. He was going to win this, she knew he was.

"What if Agent Bocks needs out help on this case. You have a background in criminal profiling and violent crimes. Since we are out here, we can at least offer him our help."

"We've given him our help, Scully, I told him what he needed to hear, they can run a few searches, and they'll have their guy in a week." He didn't sound particularly concerned.

Scully, however, highly doubted if Moe Bocks could run anything close to resembling a standard search, not if the first place he had run looking was MUFON. "I don't know, Mulder…"

"Fine," he glowered, glancing back at the other agent, still standing by the graveside. "How about this, I'll give Bocks our number at the hotel should something come up. Then, if it does, we can help out and we can assuage your Catholic guilt and I get to go to my football game. Deal?"

His face looked so pleading, so hopeful, she couldn't help but give in. She nodded in agreement with a heavy sigh, as Mulder smiled appreciatively, putting the running car into drive.

"I swear, Scully, it will be fun. The Metrodome is indoors, no cold, no rain, and the Vikings have Cris Carter. One of the best wide receivers in the NFL, has hands like…." He seemed to lose words as he thought of this mysterious football player and his hands. "Oh my God, Scully, I think Cris Carter is an X-file. These one-handed catches…it's insane."

Scully could only blink at him in confusion as he flushed, mildly embarrassed.

"Anyway," Mulder shrugged, shame faced. "He's an amazing wide receiver."

Scully couldn't have told the difference between Cris Carter and Adam, but whoever he was, Mulder was certainly impressed. "What's a wide receiver again?"

At least he had the grace not to stop the car in the middle of the road and stare at her as if she were crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cris Carter - Hall of Fame former wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings  
> Chris Carter - Creator of X-files
> 
> Therein lies the joke.


	45. How Did He Handle It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully struggles with her feelings on this case.

It disturbed her, on occasions, just how Mulder's mind worked. Scully read through his profile, her reading glasses slipping down her straight nose as she pushed them absently back up again. Even before she had met Fox Mulder and had become his partner everyone had spoken about his uncanny ability to get into the minds of criminals. He'd been doing criminal profiling for the FBI since before he actually had enrolled in Quantico. He'd been a genius at it. Still the knowledge of his skills paled in comparison to seeing them in action and it left her feeling nervous and unsettled. This whole case had Scully feeling that way, frankly, if she admitted it. Pursing her lips as she flipped a page, she continued to read Mulder's work up and tried to ignore the icy feeling forming along her spine and into her chest. The man he was describing wasn't particularly unheard of in terms of violent crimes or sexual deviance. She'd taken those courses at the FBI Academy the same as everyone else and knew that Mulder's profile frankly was atypical for the fetishist. 

That wasn't the part about Mulder's work that she found disturbing. It was the fact that her partner could even get to that level, to delve into it, pick it apart and try to understand it that disturbed her. Scully always knew Mulder was an adductive reasoner, a person who could see unrelated facts and from that create a broader picture from those facts. It was what made him so good as a profiler, to see the flotsam and jetsam left in the wake of violent crimes and plug it into what he already knew and understood of human nature. He could then take those parts down to truly get at the workings of that particular human's mind, how they thought, what they saw. He had done it many times over in his career, with Luther Boggs, with John Barnett, and now with this escalating fetishist. Scully shivered as she finished the last words of her partner's profile. She understood completely how Mulder did his work. She couldn't understand how he could stand it. She swallowed hard, setting down the profile on Bocks's cluttered desk and taking off her reading glasses, rubbing the pressure point on the bridge of her nose. She had come to know Mulder rather well in the year-and-a-half since she had first been assigned to work with him. Despite his penchant for arrogance, pig headedness, and self-centeredness, Mulder was a man passionate about the truth, about justice, a very compassionate man who despised seeing others hurt. It struck her hard that this same man could look into something so very evil without blinking, without thinking about it. He simply slipped into these creature's minds and so easily probed there, looking for his answers. It frightened her that he was able to do that.

"Did you read my profile?" She turned to Mulder, sauntering across the Minneapolis field office space, brushing raindrops off of his charcoal gray trench coat, a look of aggravated consternation on his face. Obviously his meeting with Bocks and the dead prostitute's friend at the local police station hadn't gone well.

"Just finished it." Scully picked it up and handed it over to his waiting fingers. "So, he's raised the stakes on us from a fetishist to a serial killer?"

"It's not surprising. Fetishists often work on the same thought level as the serial killer in terms of satisfaction. There is a certain level of taboo in what they are doing, often an emotional release, though not always sexual. Not every fetishist is a serial killer, but this guy, with his focus on the dead and trophies was already on that tipping point." He frowned as he flipped through the typewritten pages. "Often the trigger for such behavior is sexual, but our guy isn't doing it to rock his jollies off. I think it has to do much more with a focus on females, perhaps out of frustration and anger, born out of childhood hatred, quite possibly his mother. Perhaps his mother liked getting her hair and nails done, perhaps it was something he could easily associate with her and thus use to focus his suppressed feelings."

"I get that," Scully murmured, nodding, though she hated to admit she understood that much. "But why the dead? Why must they be in that condition first before he takes the trophies?"

As if on cue Mulder's eyes became distant, thoughtful, as if he had just been asked about his personal opinions on nuclear proliferation, not why a man needed to kill. "I think the person we are talking about here probably has always had a thing for the trophies he collects. He's not an overnight sensation. Perhaps he's someone whose built it up slowly over the years, perhaps working in fields that lent themselves to his primary focus, then working behind the scenes to satisfy his desires, knowing that he had to keep them quiet because others wouldn't understand. But with all people of this nature, it is never enough for them, they keep pursing, chasing, searching for something to give them a bigger and bigger thrill."

"Is it ever enough for you, Mulder?" She didn't know why that question popped out or even how. It surprised her nearly as much as it surprised him. He stopped, staring down at her where she sat behind Agent Bocks's desk, clearly stunned and confused by what she had said.

"What do you mean?" He frowned, obviously stung. She hadn't meant to hurt him and she hadn't meant to say what she said in the frame she had. 

Her cheeks blushed crimson briefly as she suddenly became interested in her reading glasses in hand. "Nothing, I was being flippant about it. I didn't mean it."

"You didn't sound flippant." 

No, she hadn't, she realized. Damn it all, she sighed. Why had she said it, really? To pick a fight with him, because she was disturbed by him? Was it really she was disturbed by what he had produced, about the man that Mulder had found hiding under the pile of corpses he was leaving behind. The nameless, faceless man who cared so little for the women he mutilated he left them dumped where they lay, like so much refuse, used and thrown out with no more purpose than a spent banana peel or an empty carton of ice cream.

"How do you do this, Mulder?" She didn't even looking up at him as she tried to formulate her coalescing thoughts. "How do you look evil in the face and not lose your mind?"

Scully had expected him to laugh, to shrug it off, or to even delve into his cocooning shroud of witticism. Mulder had been at this sort of thing for years, it was practically second nature to him, slipping into the minds of other human beings. It must confuse him why she was even asking the question. Instead he watched her, as if she had just answered some silent question, worry and compassion flickering across his face for the briefest of moments, gone almost before she could even see it. But she had noticed. She couldn't help the edge of irritation that filled her as she realized that once again she had him wondering if she could handle this case so soon after her own abduction. She felt her jaw tighten mutinously, but said nothing.

"I don't think it's a matter of losing my mind, Scully," he finally said, reaching behind him to pull up a chair from one of the desks neighboring Bocks's. He settled into it, his long body folding into the desk chair, pulling his still damp trench coat about himself. "It was always a knack I had, even as a kid. I knew how to read other people, to see them and their motivations, and to be able judge what they would do based on that observation. Why do you think I went into psychology?" He shrugged with a slight, self-deprecating smile. "It wasn't just because I thought my sister was taken by aliens and no one believed me."

She allowed herself the briefest of smiles, a flickering acknowledgement of his humor. "I didn't think it was just because of that, Mulder. But this case…these women. How many times have you seen these type of things?"

"Many….too many," he admitted, eyes darkening gloomily as his smile fell. "Violent Crimes wasn't easy. Serial killers, rapists, hate crimes, you name it, and I think it fell into my lap at some point. Three years of that is enough to send anyone running for the hills."

"Is that how you ended up in the X-files them?" She had always wondered if it was Samantha alone who had sent him into the basement, looking for aliens and monsters. Perhaps the human variety of had become too much for him to deal with.

"Part of it," he acknowledged. "You can only live with those images so long before it starts making you hard, inured to the cruelties of man against man. You start turning a blind eye to the violence we can do to one another in the name of whatever psychosis of the week drives us and you just assume that there is no further hope for the human race. I've seen it happen to many a good agent over in VC. They lose their compassion far before the lose their ability to investigate."

Spoken like a true veteran of the trenches, she realized, as Mulder's heavy-lidded gaze slipped away into dark thoughtfulness. She knew now she didn't ever want to ask him just what he had seen while working Violent Crimes. Just seeing this case was enough for her, seeing just how one man could dehumanize people to the point that he would resort to murder just to fulfill his desire. That was disturbing enough for just one lifetime.

"Scully," Mulder began in the tone of voice she had come to know as his opening salvo in his attempt to convince her that perhaps this was too much, too soon. She felt her spine stiffen as she only just kept open hostility from clouding her features, as she finally stood.

"Mulder, I'm fine. I will admit, this case has me…off kilter. I won't deny that. It's the first true violent crime case I've ever handled. But I can do this and if I can't, I don't deserve to have a badge." Just because she had been abducted, infected and treated like she was less than human herself did not make her some fragile creature, blown away by a stiff breeze.

"I didn't say you couldn't handle this, Scully. I'm only saying that I know what these cases can do to a person. And I know that it's okay if you need to step away, even for just a little bit." His gaze was frank but understanding. "I've been there. I know."

She had no response to that. Scully knew that there was a truth in Mulder's words, but there was so much more caught up in this for her, so many things that she hardly understood, that she could hardly express to him. He didn't understand that feeling, the feeling of seeing those women tossed aside with no more thought or explanation than she had been when whoever had taken her had left to live or die in the hospital.

When all other words failed her, she fell back on the ones she knew were a lie but was as comforting as the truth. "I'm fine, Mulder. Really."

Mulder opened his mouth, thought better of it, and then acquiesced, frowning in dissatisfaction as he nodded and moved to rise. He didn't look like he believed her for a single moment, but chose not to argue the point.

"If ever you just need to talk, Scully," he began again.

"I know." She softened her harsh reply with a smile. "I'll come and hunt you down."

It was all he was going to get out of her for now and thankfully, for her, it seemed as if that was enough.


	46. Breaking Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully survives Donnie Pfaster.

The of taste cotton fabric and stale spit filled her mouth as she tried to breath around the strip of fabric clenched between her teeth. There was a burning pain in her jaws and at the corners of her mouth, as her fingers worked desperately to try and loose her bonds someway. Instead the thick rope cuts further into her already chapped skin, and she cried slightly as the fibers dig further into her open wounds. Why was this happening to her again, her mind screamed, the claustrophobic feeling of the closet door pressing in on her? She could almost hear the insane, loud pounding of Duane Barry's music ringing through her ears. Hysterically, her brain reverted to that night she could barely remember three months before, the tang of fear in her throat as she recalled the gunshot ringing through the mountain air and Duane Barry's dark eyes looming over her, as she lay helpless in her trunk, his warning to her she shouldn't make a sound.

"Try to remain calm, Dana." This was her mantra over and over again in her mind as she pressed her bruised face against the wall of what she suspected was a closet. This wasn't Duane Barry, she tried to remind herself, this wasn't her other abduction. This was another man, a sick man, a man Mulder already had a profile on. He would find her this time, she knew he would, as certain as she was in all of that darkness, anger, and pain he carried he would move heaven and hell to find her. She had to trust in that, believe that this wasn't like before, that this time would be different. Scully had no doubt he was already shouting at some member of the Minneapolis field office, as he used his skills grown through his years as a criminal profiler to pinpoint where someone like this man would take her. She had faith in Mulder's abilities to find her eventually. She knew he wouldn't allow for himself to fail this time. The bigger question was whether or not she would be alive when he finally pinpointed the spot. Not this time either, she insisted to herself. If she didn't allow strange viruses or mutated fungi to kill her up till now, why would she allow a crazed, homicidal, fetishist freak to kill her, she reminded herself, feeling something of her own courage returning to her in the middle of her own, paralyzing fear. She returned for something more than this. And she'd be damned if this man would take her down without a fight.

Her nose was filled with the old, moldy smell of ancient dry wall and paint, and her skin stuck to it slightly where perspiration and tears had dampened the side of her cheek. She tried to straighten her bound legs, cramped in the confined space, and further encumbered by the high heels she always insisted on wearing, even out in the field. She longed to work her toes enough to get them off of her feet and flex her sore muscles, but her restrictions even denied her that comfort.

Outside of the door, she could hear the creak of floorboards as steps came by, and could see the shadow of someone in the dim light from under the door. She squinted her eyes, prepared for the onslaught of light from the outside to flood the darkness she had been sitting in. The door creaked on its hinges, as the knob rattled and swung the door open. She tried to glance at the shadowy apparition hulking over her through barely slit eyes, trying to swallow the terror that wanted to rip itself out of her throat in a scream.

"Hello, Dana." The man said his name was Donnie, and his plain, quietly malevolent face was familiar to her, for no reason she could really name. His voice was a pleasant, low and melodic, the type you would imagine someone who had worked for years in a salon would have. It was a lulling voice, one that was meant to relax you not frighten you. Her heart started skipping madly as he reached for her, and she couldn't make her feet work well enough to try and scoot away from his clutching hands.

"Your hair is so lovely," he murmured in a detached fascination, as he reached out to stroke his hands through the tangled mass of it almost reverentially. "You're a natural red head, I can tell, you don't see to many of those anymore. It's a popular color now, all the women want to have it, but they have to pay for it. God just gave it to you, how very lucky." He sounded as if he truly meant that. "I suspect with the name Scully, you must be Irish." He chuckled low in his throat, and the sound made her spine curve as she arched her body away from it. "Did you know there is a baseball announcer that is named Scully? Announced for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I heard that from a guy in the jail when you were there, the one you were there to question. I was never a fan of baseball."

The jail, she thought wildly, she had been there yesterday with Mulder, following up a fruitless lead. He had been there already, and they hadn't even suspected it. It angered her and sickened her as his fingers roamed freely across her scalp, rubbing the silken softness of her hair between his fingers. She tried to jerk out of his grasp, but he only wrapped his hand around several locks and held so tightly, she thought he'd rip her hair out by the roots. "Now, now, none of that." He sighed, shaking his head as if in grave disappointment, glancing down the hallway, towards a darkened room.

"Dana, you should know I have the control here, not you. Please, just try to cooperate, will you?" He sounded so horribly matter-of-fact, so disgustingly pleasant about it, as if he was simply asking her to follow him for a simple shampoo and rinse. She felt bile force itself up through her tightened throat, her gagged mouth stopping the urge she had to vomit just then. It occurred to her, in a flash of brief irony, that this Donnie was something so much worse than Duane Barry. Barry at least had never really had a real intention to harm her, she didn't think, his psychosis had been used by others who wished to do her real harm, and in that, perhaps, she could at least give her previous abductor a small amount of forgiveness. In Donnie she saw nothing less than something malevolent, evil…demonic. He was a monster, a predator, who saw her, Dana, as less than human, less than even a living creature. She was merely an object he could use to feed his desire, nothing more or less than that.

"Let me see your nails then, shall we," he asked, pulling up her bound hands and inspecting the fingers she tried to wiggle from his grasp. His hands were strong, much stronger than hers, digging into the chaffed and chapped skin around her bonds and holding her still as she cried out into her gag. He studied her acrylic tips with a scrutinizing eye.

"Whoever you go to, Dana, they are a real professional. Very nice. Of course I prefer it when the nails are natural, nothing can beat a nicely buffed, natural nail. But in your line of work, I understand why it would be so much nicer to use the fake kind. They are a bit more durable." He shrugged as if he were discussing real, cosmetic tips with her. It was so disgustingly trivial, so horrifying in its commonality. No hint of compassion crossed his dark, shining eyes, no recognition of who and what she was as a person.

She was nothing more than an object, to be thrown away after use and tossed aside. She jerked her hands away from him again, but he held fast, producing from out of his back pocket a long, wickedly sharp looking knife. Her eyes widened as true panic set in, her heart fluttering madly like a caged bird in her chest, as he slipped the metal in between her bound feet and neatly sliced her bindings off.

"Get the hell away from me," she tried to scream through the cotton in her dry mouth. But Donnie only leered at her, shaking his head, as for the briefest of moments his features change, as if morphing into all of the horrible creatures she had seen in her computer, trying to find someone who met Mulder's profile. Her fevered imagination whirled, as suddenly he looked, for the briefest of moments, like the horrible, demon creature from her nightmares, come to take her away like he had taken the others.

Not this time, damn it! She refused. Not this time.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered, as he pulled her up onto feed made numb by her uncomfortable position in the dark and cramped closet. She stumbled upwards, her high heels feeling ridiculously clumsy on feet filled with pins and needles. Blood rushed into them slowly as Donnie drug her tripping behind him, holding her still bound hands in a vice grip as he led her down the dark hallway to a bathroom. It was ancient looking and fusty, the type that came with an old house, long disused, perhaps one that had been owned by an older person with a more outdated sense of style. A large, cast iron bathtub was filled to the brim with water and perfumed bubbles, cloying in their scent. Judging by the relatively cool temperatures in the room and the lack of steam on the mirrors it wasn't hot water either.

This was how his victims were preserved, she thought, long enough for him to do his dirty work. Keep their bodies cool, allowing for coagulation of the blood to lessen the mess as he cut off fingers and shaved off freshly washed hair. It helped to make his work less horrific, and it deadened the trail for any medical examiner trying to establish cause of death. Donnie certainly wasn't an idiot, she realized, with sickening dread. However, he certainly had overreached himself by capturing an FBI agent….especially her of all people. The hell she was going to allow him to do to her what he had done to the others.

Her eyes roved the bathroom for anything she could use as a possible weapon. Donnie seemed oblivious to her frantic eyes, as he moved around her, to the sort of collection of shampoo and conditioner bottles only someone who once worked in a salon would possibly have. He picked up two, frowning between the two, as he stood close to the bathtub, so very close. Her small height and a little leverage, and he could topple oh so easily into it.

"Would you say your hair is normal or dry," he requested conversationally, as she backed up towards the door. Perhaps she could slip out of his sight quickly, before he noticed. If not, she could use it as a running start.

He looked up at her when she didn't answer. His placid faced twisted as his dark eyes light up with flaming rage. "Now where are you going," he demanded, his tone hardly fluctuating from when he had asked her about shampoo. He lunged across the space between them, hands grabbing her, but she had already readied herself, and pushed, hard, with her shoulders and still numb feet. Though he was bigger than her, he was unprepared for her to fight back like that, and he went toppling backwards into the freezing, soapy water behind. Without bothering to look back, Scully spun and ran out of the bathroom, down the hallway, towards the direction in which she had hoped to find a door and thus freedom. 

She ignored the outraged shriek of anger that sounded behind her, as she rushed to what looked like her way out, pulling at the door and finding, to her bitter disappointment, it was locked. And there was no visible way of unlocking it and allowing her a way out. He had a key, somewhere. Damn it all, she swore, as somewhere in the house she could hear Donnie's footsteps coming for her, sure and certain in the place he called home. Frantic, she spun around, looking for a place to conceal herself from him. Perhaps long enough that he would believe she had escaped, and would rush outside to find her.

"There's no way out, girly girl." Donne bellowed from somewhere. "I know this house, girly girl. There's nowhere to hide."

She found herself in a room that looked like it was a laundry room of sorts, filled with spray bottles of cleaner and other chemicals. She would have said a prayer of thanksgiving if she could talk, but the gag was still painfully in her mouth. She tore at it with her still bound fingers, pulling it out of her dry, chapped lips and spitting out the fibers that clung to her tongue. She grabbed the closest bottle of whatever it was, and moved out of the room, into a hallway, finding another room, and slipped just behind the door as quickly and silently as she could. She could wait there and listen for Donnie to arrive.

His footsteps were light and stealthy in the hallway, like those of a cat, as he moved across creaking floorboards, and closer to the closed door she hid behind. As expected, she could see the doorknob turn slowly, and she licked her cracked lips with expectation, her heart pumping adrenaline into her as the door hinges began to squeak. The door opened slowly, as Donnie's dark, suspicious eyes peeked in just enough to search the room for her small presence.

Thankfully he had dealt with only dead corpses and prostitutes up to this point, Scully thought, else he would have been more prepared for an FBI agent who was fed up as hell with being abducted by crazed lunatics. She held up the spray bottle, her aim and reflexes hardly dulled by the bindings around her wrists, as she pressed down hard and shot whatever it was inside the bottle straight into Donne's eyes. He screamed and threw his hands up, revealing the sleek, black gun in his right hand, useless to him as his eyelids slammed shut and his face began to swell. He patted blindly at her as she ran around him, stumbling backwards and flailing as she made a dash for the staircase. Sadly the chemical might have temporarily stunned him, but it didn't blind Donnie. With a bullish roar he came around the corner just as she reached the top of the stairs, and loped the small space in two steps, lunging for her as he did. The force of his weight as he threw himself at her tossed them both down the stairwell, tumbling down the hard staircase and throwing them unceremoniously on the floor below.

Scully gasped as Donnie moaned beside her, both momentarily stunned. She shook her head, trying to clear it, as she wiggled and struggled to get away from him, to get up. Her trouser clad knees slid on the hardwood floor, as her eyes settled on the small, black revolver pistol. It was the one that had been in Donnie's hand; it must have slipped out during their fall down the stairs. Without glancing back at the still dazed Donnie, Scully scrambled for the weapon, her bound hands reaching for it as behind her assailant sat up, and realized just what she was aiming to do. 

Without warning she felt his full weight come down on top of her, pinning her down, just as her small fingers circled around the pistol but her trigger finger automatically looping in place, ready to fire. Wiggling, she managed to turn around on him, gun in hand, pointing it directly at his furious, twisted face. A face that for the briefest of moments transformed to that of a demon in her eyes once again, shocking her to stillness as she blinked in terror on the floor. It was enough of a pause for Donnie to snap the gun from her hands, menace etching his now very human features once again. Before he could even move, however, a shadow filled the scant light of the front door window and a booming crash sent the wooden door flying, the glass window shattering as it smacked hard against the wall it swung into.

"Federal agents, hands in the air!" Mulder's voice boomed with all of the authority of an avenging angel, as without flinching he leveled his gun straight at Donnie's back. Only once before had Scully ever seen Mulder with such a dark scowl on his face, when Barnett had shot her months before, and she had been sent sprawling across the floor. He'd shot and killed Barnett that day. She had no doubt he'd do the same to Donnie if he didn't stand down. Cornered, the other man froze, turning towards her partner, hands in the air, as other men, other agents, surrounded him, pulling him away from menace that was her partner, and away from where she lay, still breathless and stunned on the floor. She nearly disbelieved for the briefest of moments that Mulder had done it; he'd actually done it. He had come, just like he always said he would. If she weren't tied and sprawled on the floor, she thought, she could hug him for this.

As soon as Donnie was removed, Mulder lowered his weapon and was kneeling beside her, holy retribution now set aside for tight, worried concern as she struggled to sit up. "Let's get the paramedics out here," he called out loudly to anyone who would listen, as she shook her head at him. She didn't need paramedics, for God's sake, she was a doctor, and she could patch herself up. What she needed was to get the damned bindings off her wrists.

"I'm okay," she grumbled, as she tried to stand, Mulder's warm, broad hand on her shoulder trying to keep her down.

"Just stay there, Scully," he murmured. He looked her over from head to foot, as if certain he'd find some broken bone or gaping wound. Save for the cuts on her face and the chaffing of her wrists, she had none,and she found herself slightly nettled he insisted on coddling her.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "Just help me get my wrists undone." She scrambled to her knees, as Mulder took her elbow gently and helped her to her feet. She wobbled, briefly, on her high heels, but resolutely stood firm in front of him as she held her wrists out. He scowled angrily at the bindings that held them together, but silently began working the now tight knots with long, dexterous fingers, softly undoing each so that the chords would cease cutting into her already raw, reddened skin.

"How did you find me?" She managed to wonder aloud as around her fellow FBI agents, sheriff's officers and Minnesota State Patrol roamed through the house, the lights of squad cars flashing outside and into the hallway. They cast a ghostly parlor to the furniture, to the family photos set on the hallways table, to Mulder's carefully still face.

"His mother used to own the house, willed it to the sisters. I played a hunch." His tone was neutral, but she could feel a slight tremor in his fingertips as he unwrapped the last of the binding, carefully easing it off her skin as she flexed her hands for the first time in hours. "A patrolman spotted the car out front." He nodded to the driveway where the cop cars had gathered.

She nodded, absently, knowing that she lacked all of the information for Mulder's explanation to make sense, but deciding for right now that it was enough that he was there, that she was there, and she wasn't taken, tortured, and cast aside yet again. Her eyes prickled as she avoided Mulder's probing gaze, and turned to where Donnie lay on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, handcuffed, as other officers read him his rights. He hardly seemed to see them there. He hardly seemed to care what was happening to him. His eyes met hers, dark, glittering, and dangerous, watching her as less of a person and more as a thing. She wanted to cry, to scream, to vomit. Instead, all she felt was numb and empty as Donnie was lifted up and led away, a void filling inside her that seem to encompass all that she thought, all that she felt in that moment. How could she possibly let it out, express it, hope to ever have anyone possibly understand?

Mulder's fingers where ghostly soft on her wrists, his voice gentle and sad. "Why don't you sit down until someone can take a look at you?"

It wasn't a command, it was a suggestion. She knew that, but her knee-jerk response kicked in almost before she could stop herself. "Mulder, I'm fine."

It was a lie and he knew it. Mulder could read people like others read books and he could see through her and her walls of fragile reserve. His fingertips reached up and tipped her chin, forcing her to look up at him, to meet his hazel-green eyes filled with compassion, concern, and worry as he looked down at her. He had come, like he always promised he would, like she knew he would, and now she was safe. Somehow she knew it was okay, just this once, to not be strong, to show that fear trembling in her knees and that threatened to break her into pieces. Without even realizing she was doing it her eyes misted with tears as they fell too quickly to stop down her bruised and lacerated cheeks. In that moment all that had filled that void inside of her burst out into a gut wrenching sob, as she crossed her arms around her middle, trying to hold it in and herself upright, to cling to some semblance of that stiff-upper lip her father had always told her to have. Except she couldn't keep it, not now, not now that it was open, and all of her fears of her own death, her own abduction, of what Duane Barry had done, of what Donnie had done pulled up to the surface. She sobbed softly, closing her eyes against the streaming tears, as tender hands reached for her and pulled her forward, and arms wrapped tightly around her now shaking shoulders.

"It's all right, Dana," Mulder murmured as he held her tightly into his chest, ignoring the shirt and tie she now sobbed against as one hand reached up to stroke her hair softly, as if she were a child. In Donnie, the gesture had been cold, impersonal, and inhuman. Mulder simply wanted to impart comfort, to remind her that he was there and he wasn't going anywhere. Relenting she unfolded her arms from around herself, circling them around Mulder, clinging tightly to him as she finally gave vent to all of the horrible, terrible fears that had wracked her for the past hours, days, weeks since she had woken up in the hospital. She sobbed and cried as he simply held her, whispering softly into her ear that it was fine, he was there, and he wouldn't leave her now. It was the sort of anchor she needed as she slowly but surely went to pieces in her partner's arms.

She had no idea how long she had been standing there, perhaps minutes, perhaps an hour. Mulder hardly moved or stopped his soft reassurances as she slowly started to calm down, her heart beginning ease in its palpation, her shaking ceasing in the warm circle of his embrace. She had never noticed, until that moment, just how very tall Mulder was, how easily she fit there, how strong and solid he was. It wasn't the first time she had nearly broken down in front of him and needed comfort, she had nearly died once before, and he'd been the one to buck her up after the fright she had gotten nearly being chopped to bait by a rotating ventilator fan. But that had been early on in their partnership, well before he had nearly died, before her abduction, before Puerto Rico and Skyland Mountain. Then she had been little more than a green, field agent, and he the more experienced officer. Then she would have been appalled at such a show of weakness in front of him. Now his warm presence seemed to be the only thing keeping her together as her grief threatened to shatter her apart.

"How's she doing?" Moe Bocks's gravely voice was grave and worried from somewhere behind her and it finally occurred to Scully that she was standing in the middle of a crime scene, with fellow agents all over the place, clinging onto her own partner for dear life as she sobbed her heart out into his chest. She pulled away from Mulder suddenly, perhaps too suddenly as she felt her knees give slightly in the circle of his arms and he tightened them ever so slightly as if making sure she didn't tumble to the ground in front of all of them.

"I'm okay," she whispered as she let go of him, reaching a hand up to wipe at her tear stained and swollen face, sniffing loudly. "I think I'll be okay, I just need to…" To what? She wasn't sure. Mulder looked down at her, as if understanding her despite the fact she hardly understood herself. He glanced sideways at Agent Bocks.

"I think I'll get Scully to the hotel. She's had enough for tonight. We'll come in the morning to do the report, okay?"

"Sure," Bocks agreed, glancing from Mulder to Scully with troubled compassion. He reached clumsily into his jacket pocket for a clean, cotton handkerchief, the old-fashioned sort that men used to carry with them all of the time. He passed it to her with a shy, flustered gesture, and she accepted it, wiping at her streaming face self-consciously.

"Could you get one of the boys to send Agent Scully's things to the hotel?" Mulder asked, lowering his arms, but smoothly moving one hand to the small of her back, the traditional place he always kept his fingers. It was as if he wanted to remind her always that he was there, just behind her, someone she could lean when it all got to be too much. Just like it had just done, she realized.

"Yeah, well get her things from the field office. I'll have them meet you there with them." Bocks nodded at them both. "Get to bed, Agent Scully. Get some rest if you can. We'll take care of things here."

Had she been in her right frame of mind, she might have been vaguely insulted by the comment. Instead she nodded mutely, thankful for once she was required to think of anything, do anything. She just wanted to hide somewhere, to forget of dark, glittering eyes and demonic faces. She shivered slightly, as Mulder began to lead her away, out of the throng of officers and squad cars, outside to where Mulder's waiting, rental sedan sat.

"You alright," Mulder murmured softly behind her, his fingers never leaving their place, as if he too had to physically remind himself of her presence, that she was there and safe and alive.

For once her usual response didn't spring to her lips. "No," she murmured thickly through her clogged nose, tears threatening to spill again. She kept them in check, at least till they got into the car. "I'm not okay, Mulder. But, I think I will be."

"All right," he nodded, as he opened the rental passenger side door for her, and helped her get inside. Once she was settled, he closed the door, and in long strides rounded the front of the car to his own door, climbing in beside her, keys in hand.

"Mulder," she breathed as he started the car, knowing if she didn't say this now she might not have the courage to admit it later. He turned to her, inquisitive but silent, the blue and red siren lights playing across his quiet face.

"I knew you would come for me, that you would find me. It's why I kept fighting, because somehow, I just knew it. You always do."

She could see the impact of her words on him. The guilt and remorse for her disappearance and the anger at himself for allowing it seemed to melt away in the face of her gratitude, as without a word he reached a hand from the steering wheel to her lap and grasped one of her hands in his, his fingers lacing themselves with her own. He said nothing, looking too overwhelmed for words as a suspicious looking mistiness crept into his own gaze.

"Let's get to that hotel." She finally whispered, feeling now for the first time suddenly overwhelmingly exhausted and longing for a hot shower and a flat surface somewhere to lay her head. "I'm tired."

Mulder barely nodded as he let go of her hand regretfully and put the car into gear to leave.


	47. Making It Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully gives Mulder a gift.

Scully stared at the top of Mulder's desk, wondering where in the hell she could even find a clean enough spot to place the brightly colored, red envelope and hope he would notice it. From front to back it was covered in file folders, case reports, newspapers, photographs, and one glossy-covered magazine with a woman on the cover wearing the sort of outfit she was fairly certain Mrs. Claus wouldn't be caught dead in. She picked up the magazine for the briefest of moments and frowned at the buxom brunette with the impossibly long legs and soft, pouting lips. What did Mulder see in these women anyway?

"Not that I'm complaining, Scully, but I don't see Ms. December as being your type."

Scully leapt a mile behind Mulder's desk as she guiltily dropped the magazine, the hand holding the card flying automatically behind her back. She swallowed as she cleared her throat nervously, trying for all the world not to look like she was snooping at her partner's personal workspace. Because she hadn't been, she reminded herself. She had simply been trying to leave a card, a gesture of her appreciation, not seeking to understand the whys behind Mulder's fascination with pictures of scantily clad women. Her flaming cheeks burned as she defiantly met Mulder's laughing smile as he lounged in the doorway, briefcase slung over one shoulder, his dark eyebrows were raised in delighted amusement.

"Why do you read those things anyway," Scully snapped, nervously moving from behind his desk, stepping as nonchalantly as she could manage over to her own discomfort.

"Same reason you like those silly, chic lit books you are always reading," he replied reasonably, a glimmer of devilish laughter in his eyes, standing straight from where he had been leaning again the door jamb of their office. Did he have to look so…tall, she grumbled, as she frowned at him, completely cool and put together in his standard suit and tie. At least the tie was decent for a change, a cool, dark green that didn't clash horribly with his dark suit, and complimented his smirking, green eyes. Did she really just think his tie complimented his eyes? She has one meltdown in the man's arms and she is having stupid thoughts. In irritation she turned on her heels, tugging at her pencil skirt as she tried to hide the evidence of the card in hand and moved to her table across the office from him.

Mulder glanced at her suspiciously as she tried to settle, none-to-elegantly, behind her table, trying to keep the card inconspicuous as possible. Which, when you realized this was Mulder, king of adductive reasoning, it seemed a moot point to even try, she remembered as she slipped the card onto her lap unobtrusively. He lazily moved from the doorway to his desk, setting down the briefcase he had in hand and shucking his charcoal colored overcoat, tossing it carelessly on the back of his office chair.

"If you're interested, Scully, I'm sure I have Ms. November and October around here somewhere." Mulder glanced playfully around his messy work space, earning a chilly glare from her as she stiffened her spine and raised one, icy eyebrow.

"Thanks, I think I've seen enough of fake boobs and airbrushing," she sniffed, though she couldn't quite hide the lingering pinkness to her cheeks. "Besides I have a report to write for Skinner today, as do you."

Her words had the effect of tossing a cold bucket on Mulder's good humor, his smile sobering in an instant as he nodded grimly. "I know." He flopped heavily into his chair, waiting as his ancient machine came to life. They had spoken little on the events of three days earlier, of Donnie Pfaster, of what he had done to her, and of Scully's own reaction to it. Their drive to the hotel in Minneapolis had been silent and save for checking her into her own room and making sure she was comfortable and safe for the night, Mulder had done little since then to bring it up. Scully supposed he was simply waiting for her to mention it, if she chose.

She wasn't terribly sure she would ever chose, to, frankly. Even now she cringed as she thought of that horrible moment, standing in Mulder's arms, sobbing hysterically in front of everyone. She had gone quite thoroughly and completely to pieces, as cool, confident Agent Scully became for the briefest of moments scared and shattered Dana, broken after months of near death experiences. She had refused to look at Mulder the next morning when she had emerged from the hotel room, her face puffy and worn from tears and sleep, wanting more than anything to just go home, to get away from all of this, to hide from the darkness for a few days and find herself, her center, and put Duane Barry, Donnie Pfaster, and all of this behind her.

"Scully?" Mulder cut into her thoughts, in the same soft and warm tone he had used while she had stood there, broken, being held together by the sheer physical stability of his presence. "I think you should leave the report. Skinner would more than understand."

"Nonsense, Mulder, that's unprofessional," she began, but caught his eyes as they watched her with the low intensity that always marked Mulder burning briefly. "I'm not a child, Mulder. I've been an agent for four years now. It's not that I don't know how to handle myself under duress."

"Regulations grant that you don't have to file the paperwork if you were the one caught up in it, Scully," Mulder replied, looking very guilty all of the sudden. "Besides, I already filed a report with Skinner last night."

"What," she snapped, her face blazing again, but now with fury rather than embarrassment. She stared at Mulder, who met her anger with mild determination, unapologetic and set to remain that way.

"Mulder, you should have at least given me the chance to add to whatever you wrote," she snapped angrily. "I should have at least gotten to review what you had to say, added my thoughts on the case."

"Scully, you shouldn't have been on that case from the beginning and I should have sent you home the moment you started to be bothered by it." Mulder's mouth pursed mulishly as she shook his dark head, crossing his arms across his chest. "You are the one always preaching to me that when a case becomes to personal, when we lose our objectivity, we should step away from it, to maintain our integrity."

"I'm fine, I can add my input into one stupid report," she insisted, infuriated that he would think otherwise.

"Could you have been objective about it?" Mulder replied pointedly, his eyes unerringly sliding to where Scully's notes lay beside her computer. "Could you have reported, without prejudice just what your medical report had to say?"

"I could try," she retorted.

"I can't have try, Scully…not anymore. You know that and I know that." He leaned forward in his chair, almost as if he were leaning over her, his physical presence trying to make clear what his words were not. "They shut us down before, for little more than bureaucratic oversight. Skinner as much as told us both we have to be clean, on everything. One cause for a slip up, one raised eyebrow from OPR or a Deputy Director, and they will shut us down for good, without any hope of recourse."

Scully pursed her lips together hard, biting back the retort she wanted to give. She wanted to ask him when had he started questioning her objectivity, he of all people, but she knew that was unfair to him. And Mulder was right in this; he knew how fragile the position they stood in now was, after everything they had been through to get to this point. But to not trust her own judgment on this stung her pride, more than she was willing to admit out loud.

"You're insight, Scully, your ability to stand back with objectivity and critical thought, to question everything that I do, this is why you are so very invaluable to me as a partner. And as my friend, you are always the first to ride my ass when you know that I am letting outside factors cloud my ability to perform my work. I need you to always remain that way, Scully." His gaze was open and honest, frankly asking her to step aside, just this one time. "Let me handle Donnie Pfaster, okay? I'm not asking you to step away completely, just away from this. For now, please?"

He didn't beg, he didn't wheedle, his pleas was simple and direct. As angry as she wanted to be with him, she couldn't allow herself hold onto her irritation. Defeated, she sighed, nodding as she petulantly set aside her notes on top of the bright, red envelope she had not so suavely tried to place in the middle of his desk. It seemed like such a bad time to bring this up now, after an argument between them. But if she didn't, she'd only make this worse, she reasoned. After all, it was a gift, a thank you was more like it, a combination of everything that had passed between them in the last year. It seemed like so much more than had passed between them in their first year of working together, when they had still been feeling each other out, learning how the other ticked, what drove the other, how they operated. This year had been much more about loss and hardship and of working together despite the odds, when the entire world was falling down around them. Scully certainly hoped that this wouldn't be the tone of their year to come. She was ready for life to settle down to a slightly more prosaic pace. Somehow she doubted that this would ever happen while working with Fox Mulder.

She cleared her throat nervously as she reached for the envelope, the edge of one of her manicured nails running along the sharp side of the card. "It occurred to me, Mulder," she called to him from her table as he logged onto his computer and opened his email. He turned slightly, glancing back at the sound of her voice. "It occurred to me that I forgot your birthday."

He blinked in puzzled surprise, as if trying to recall when his birthday even was. "You did?"

"Yes," she murmured, pushing back on her chair and rising, card in hand. "I was still at home recovering."

"Oh!" He blinked, waving it off as he returned to his computer monitor. "Don't worry about it. I think the only person who ever remembers is my mother. I forget half of the time."

"Well, yes." Scully nervously moved towards the side of his desk, the card held between her hands as she stood there, trying to find how to put all of what she felt, all of her gratitude, her appreciation, her affection for this strange, weird man who had been partnered with by happenstance into words that didn't sound…well, hokey. "And I know that Christmas is less than three weeks away…"

"On that, Scully," Mulder began, turning back to her, but stopped when he saw her standing there, card in hand. One eyebrow shot up questioningly as he viewed the card, a smile tugging at his full lips.

"A little impatient for the holidays, are we?" His heavy-lidded eyes crinkled at the corners, like they always did when he smiled, making him look impossibly like a child again. Mulder could say what he wanted about gift exchanges, but she knew he felt no different receiving a present than anyone else.

"Call it a late Hanukkah present," she teased, knowing that was a holiday he never celebrated either. "Actually, its more a 'thank you Mulder for being my friend, saving my life, and generally keeping me together, happy holidays' present." She bit her lip nervously as she passed it over to him. "And perhaps a bit of a guilty present as well?"

"Guilty?" He half frowned as he took the card, wondering as he opened his desk drawer for a mail opener.

"Yeah, you'll see what I mean." She smiled tightly and nervously as he slid the sharp, metallic file under the flap of the sealed card and neatly cut open the envelope to the card inside. Her feet fidgeted impatiently as he pulled out the card and opened it, two paper tickets with the Native American emblem of the Washington Redskins printed at the top nestled inside.

Mulder paused, picking them up in perplexed wonder and glancing up at Scully's mad, delighted grin.

"Last home game of the season, against the New York Giants, fifty-yard-line, RFK Stadium, you and me." She watched him expectantly as he stared at the tickets, a pleased, if somewhat bemused smile forming on his face.

"Scully!" He blinked, laughing mildly astonished, pleased and yet skeptical. "I guess I don't know what to say. I can honestly admit the last thing I expected you to get me was football tickets."

"You don't like them," she asked, momentarily worried he was not pleased with the gift she had spent far too much money on. Who knew that football tickets would be so expensive?

"No, I love it, just…well…" He glanced up at her, as if trying to decide how to phrase his sentence. "You hate football."

"I don't hate it," she argued.

"You don't love it."

"Well, yeah," she shrugged. "But you did promise to teach me what a touchdown was."

"You know what it is," he snorted, waving the tickets at her. "But I'll take them anyway and the company too."

"Good, because I want to understand what the attraction is sitting in horrible weather to watch something you can see better in the warmth of your home is." She teased as he set the tickets aside, and looked down at the card she had purchased. It was a simple card, more a "thank you" than a "happy holiday", and despite the note she had painstakingly written and toiled over just the night before, she found herself finding it woefully inadequate to all of the things she really wanted to say to him, to the appreciation she really had for her partner.

"I hope you don't mind the card," she blurted as he finished reading it. He smiled softly as he moved to set it by his computer monitor. "I mean…it was hokey." She flushed, shrugging her shoulder. "I just didn't know quite how to say thank you, for everything. For being the one to always be there, even when no one else was." She swallowed hard, feeling suddenly horribly nervous as she cleared her throat, fingers twisting themselves together as she held them in front of her. "Your belief in me, the work, in everything kept me going when I might have fallen apart. And if you hadn't had such faith in your own convictions, Mulder, I might not have had the faith to continue myself."

She turned shy eyes up to glance at him, hoping that he didn't think her a total idiot by now, rambling as she stood there by the side of his desk. But he didn't look like he thought she was a raving lunatic. She couldn't exactly put a finger on just what was going on in Mulder's brain, it was a rare moment when the normally open Mulder had shut her out, his thoughts spinning quietly behind those guarded eyes. Still, his smile was grateful and genuine as he nodded appreciatively.

"Thanks," he murmured, holding up the tickets she had purchased. "And I plan to get you drunk enough to start heckling the other team."

The tension between them was broken and she felt it release like a suddenly popped balloon. However far from being let down, Scully found herself laughing unexpectedly, the noise bubbling out of her as she tried to imagine herself intoxicated and rowdy at a sporting event with Mulder.

"Somehow, I don't think you'll manage that," she replied, grinning broadly. "I can actually hold my booze better than expected for my short height. It's the Irish in me."

"That sounds like a challenge." Mulder smiled, slow and wicked as she snorted at him and turned to her table.

"It will take a month of bad cases to get me to go drinking with you. I don't trust you." She waggled an index finger at him as she sat back down at her table.

"I'm a perfect gentleman. I can't say my camera would be though," he teased, delighted when she shook her head at him.

"That's why I can't take you anywhere."

"Well, perhaps you can take me to your mom's house for Christmas," he replied smoothly, so much so it took Scully a moment to realize what he had just said. She blinked blankly at him before it occurred to her what he meant.

"You're willing to give in and take Mom's invitation?" It surprised her and perhaps disquieted her just a bit as well. She had never taken anyone home to her parents on a holiday that she wasn't in a romantic relationship with. And yet, she wasn't exactly 'taking' Mulder home, her mother had invited him out of gratitude for what he had done for her and for her family while Scully was abducted. It was her mother's way of saying "thank you" to him, of letting him know that she appreciated him, and didn't want him to cling to the guilt of what happened to Scully. It didn't mean she didn't find it all horribly nerve wracking. She was bringing him to her parents' house. Granted, it would only be herself and Melissa there with her mother, but there was something horribly intimate about it, like bringing home that male friend from school who you have no interest in, but your parent's eye speculatively just the same.

"I was thinking about it and I realized that I'd insult your mother if I kept turning her down. And besides, my mother hasn't managed to guilt me into the holidays with her yet."

"And you can get out of it if you have to by saying you made other plans?" Convenient how that worked, Scully thought ruefully.

"Let's just say I realized I can't stay guilty about everything," Mulder affirmed, as he turned back to his computer. "Besides, your mother makes mean pumpkin pie. A man can be easily bribed by that sort of food."

"So when I next want to get my way around here, just bring in some of Mom's pie?"

"It would go a long way towards getting what you want, Scully," he agreed.


	48. Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully contemplates Mulder's obsession with his slide projector.

Scully was beginning to wonder if Mulder was having a strange, torrid love affair with his slide machine. He certainly was awful fond of it, she theorized, as he loaded the carousel onto it, filled with slides from some case in Wisconsin he was keen on following up on. Minnesota, now Wisconsin, the upper Midwest ho! Well, at least it wasn't Washington State. She could be very happy not visiting the Pacific Northwest for a very long time. Despite the mind-numbing, eye-popping cold of the Upper Midwest this time of year, she was actually rather interested in a Wisconsin trip. She heard they had great cheese there. 

"I think I have this thing working," Mulder mumbled to himself, as he depressed the trigger in his hand several times, clicking to a grainy photograph of someone's back. The words "He is one" were written clearly on what looked like a young man's pale skin in black marker.

"Gary Kane, 16 years old, high school Junior. "C" student, first-string varsity football, member of the local 4-H club." Mulder clicked to another slide of the young man, the typical white-bread, all-American looking sort you saw in the Midwest. "Not one of Wisconsin's more remarkable kids, but still the apple of his mother's eye."

She frowned as he clicked back to the first frame and stared at the markings. "What does it mean?"

Mulder shrugged, "Nobody knows."

"What does the police report say?" She moved to sit on the desk beside him, as he pulled up the X-file report, complete with the county sheriff's notes on the happenstances surrounding Gary Kane's abduction.

"The victim received a phone call and left his home. He was discovered in the woods in his underwear twelve hours later. He's been unable to give a coherent statement."

"Any evidence of sexual assault?" It was usually the first place most investigators went when someone was found in that sort of condition. Mulder shook his head in the negative, murmuring "no" thoughtfully.

It was a small town, Scully mused, and lots of strange and crazy things tended to happen in small towns when you had extremely bored and restless youth. "Does it seem like it might have been a schoolboy prank?"

Again Mulder shook his head, pulling at his bottom lip absently. "The other victims have had to be sedated and hospitalized since their ordeals. They were reportedly hysterical with fear."

Scully blinked at him in surprise. He had left this information out of the equation. "Victims? You mean there have been others?"

Wordlessly he clicked on his trigger as another slide popped up, with another person marked the same way Gary Kane was.

"One in eastern Wisconsin, one three towns away." The latest victim was in much the same condition as the other two. "Both with the same black words written in black magic marker."

The spread out nature of the incidents ruled out hate crimes, Scully reasoned, as well as childish pranks. So just what was it that caught Mulder's attention? "What's your interest in this?"

Mulder grinned at her as if he thought she would never ask. "The local sheriff in Delta Glen, Wisconsin thinks he knows what's been happening to these kids."

"What's that?"

"He thinks they've been possessed." Mulder let that tidbit drop between them with an air of quiet delight. Because he knew if there was anything sure to raise the hackles of Dana Scully it was anything having to do with religion.

"Possession?" She raised a dry eyebrow. "As in demons?"

"Delta Glen is a God fearing community, Scully, and they believe in the power of good and evil."

"Even in the old stories, Mulder, demons weren't usually wont to abduct teenagers and leave childish messages in magic marker on their skin."

"I would completely and totally agree with you on that." Mulder nodded, sauntering over to where she sat on the desk and leaning against it as he glanced at the police report in her lap. "There seems to be nothing in this report that indicates to me in the least that what Gary Kane or the others experienced has anything to do with demon possession."

"And we are interested in this again, because?" Scully reiterated, looking up at him with raised eyebrows.

"As tempted as I was to score Green Bay tickets, it's not over football," Mulder teased, referring to their last case that had been specifically because of Mulder's desire to see the Redskins/Vikings game. "I'm more interested in what it is about these kids that's connecting them. Something about them is interesting to someone." His criminal profiler instincts were kicking in. He was intrigued more by the facts presented to him rather than the possibility that it could really be a demon possession.

"This isn't strictly an X-file, Mulder." Scully pointed out archly, raising the file to wave in front of his face.

"No, but we were asked specifically by the Delta Glen Sheriff's office to help handle it. And I think that we, as good special agents, should do just that."

"As long as you have your justification for Skinner, I don't care." Skinner would probably be more than overjoyed to have a somewhat "normal" case out of the two of them.

"That's the spirit, Scully!" Mulder grinned, patting her on the shoulder. "And look at it this way, a week till Christmas, you can finish up your holiday shopping there."

Screw family, she thought, she was buying cheese for herself. "I don't think my brothers would appreciate giant sticks of summer sausage for Christmas."

"Who doesn't appreciate a little sausage on the holidays?" She couldn't tell if the wicked gleam in Mulder's eye was supposed to be a lewd, double entendre or not. She chose to ignore it.

"I've gotten you your Christmas present already. All I ask is that we are done with the case in reasonable time and neither of us gets injured or maimed. Is that too much to ask for a holiday?"

"With us, it's always hard to know." Mulder warned, cheerfully.


	49. Best Ribs in Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully indulge in barbecue.

Wisconsin, strange cults and vegetarians be damned, Scully was starving and who cared if she had been working for weeks to work off the weight she had gained in her illness! The giant plate of juicy, greasy, barbecued beef ribs in front of her would be hers. Well…just as soon as Mulder stopped staring at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads.

"Scully are you sure you can handle all of that?" He sounded dubious as he picked up one of the giant ribs himself, studying it as if he was trying to decide what was the best way to attack it.

"Mulder, aren't you the one who loves barbecue? When we were in Tennessee, on the faith healing case, you tried to convince me that we should go on a case tour of all the major barbecue spots." She cheekily grinned at him as she snagged a rib off the platter and began to delicately nibble on one end. Well, as delicately as anyone could manage gnawing on giant cow bone.

Mulder stared at her, transfixed.

"Your sauce is dripping, Mulder." She smiled sweetly, pointing to the giant blob of grease and barbecue sauce that threaten to fall straight into the uncovered part of his lap. He blinked and quickly moved the rib out of immediate danger, before finally giving in and beginning to eat himself.

When he finally managed to finish his rib, well before she had finished hers, he set it down and reached for another, watching as she steadfastly chewed.

"We'll be here all night at this rate," he teased, stripping one side of the bone practically with one bite.

"I have smaller teeth, makes for good bone cleaning." She neatly set the bone on her plate and reached for another rib.

"You sound so clinical when you say that."

"I am a pathologist." She shrugged, cheerfully starting her next victim. She chewed thoughtfully on the smoky meat. "Perhaps it's simply the barbaric side of me seeking to come out."

"I think I need to see more of this barbaric side, Scully." Mulder winked as he reached over for a third rib and looking as if he had no intention of stopping. To say it was an orgy of meaty, greasy goodness was an understatement. Though, to Mulder's credit, he finished a vast majority of the ribs that Scully, with her smaller teeth and smaller appetite, could not. But she was the last to finish, thoughtfully chewing on her bone as Mulder wiped grease and sauce from off his face and hands.

"Of all the strange and weird things I've made you eat, Scully, in a million years I never imagined I'd get you to eat beef ribs."

"Why not?"

"You just don't seem the beef rib, eating type." He frowned playfully as she continued clean the bone she was working on. "Seriously, you look far to girly to be a cave woman."

"I'm not all that girly," she protested mildly.

"How long did it take you after we got back from Washington for you to get your nails done?"

"A couple of days," she shrugged, noticing self-consciously that she had barbecue sauce and meat stuck under her nails of each forefinger.

"And how many pairs of shoes do you own?"

"Shut up, Mulder," she groused, dropping her last bone on the plate in front of her, sighing with happy, replete contentment. "You know, with ribs like these, I'd say the Church of the Red Museum has its work cut out for it." 

Honestly, they were some of the best ribs she had eaten in years. And she wasn't going to admit to Mulder just how recently it had been since she had eaten ribs either. Not that he would notice, she realized. He was too busy staring at the corner of her mouth. She wasn't sure at what. Wondering if it was something on her face, she began to reach, but he beat her to it, leaning across the table with the corner of his napkin and gently wiping at something just below her cheek. It was the briefest touch, but she was startled by it, the intimacy of it. Of course, Mulder hadn't exactly ever been one to pay much attention to such things as personal space. He was always the touchy, feely type, but she had never had him do something as personal and as strange as removing barbecue sauce off her face. She felt her cheeks turn bright crimson.

"Thanks," she murmured, ducking her head slightly as she wiped her now grimy fingers off with her napkin.

Quick, she thought, change the subject to something remotely safe. She cleared her throat as she tried to tidy her hands up as best she could. "So, you started to tell me about walk-ins but I'm not sure if I grasped the finer points." Frankly she had never even heard of the concept before. It sounded like something her sister Melissa might have spoken of once, but she had only half been listening.

"Well, it's kind of a new age religion based on an old idea. That if you lose hope or despair and want to leave this mortal coil, you become open and vulnerable."

"To inhabitation by a new spirit?"

"A new enlightened spirit," he clarified. Scully wondered how it was he knew all these archaic bits of random knowledge. "According to the literature, Abe Lincoln was a walk-in. And Mikhail Gorbachev and Charles Colson, Nixon's advisor."

Only Nixon's advisor, huh," she smiled. "But not Nixon?"

"No. Not even they want to claim Nixon." Mulder grinned.

"So are you still subscribing to the sheriff's claims of a possession?" Not that he ever seriously was, but she was starting to see where the sheriff and the people of Delta Glen were getting the idea, especially now that she knew something of these supposed "walk-ins".

Mulder looked hesitant to agree whole-heartedly with the good sheriff. "Don't know. In the absence of any other plausible explanation, it's a novel theory." He hedged, pulling off his sauce covered bib and tossing it beside the battlefield of stripped and roasted cattle bones.

Scully considered the sheriff's ideas, of the possession of the children, and thought of the fear and uncertainty emanating from Gary Kane that day. The boy was terrified, she was sure that part hadn't been an act, for all of the sheriff's prompting and leading the witness. She had felt something while she had stood there in the hallway, a presence that had been watching them. It had unnerved her, but she had found nothing when she had turned around to investigate.

"Well, I'll tell you something," she began thoughtfully, as outside the front window of the restaurant she heard some sort of commotion break out. "I kind of feel weird saying this..."

Mulder's eyes turned towards whatever was going on outside, narrowing as the tendon in his jaw line twinge just a bit.

"Really," he murmured, only half listening to her. His attention was focused outside, as someone yelled at a tall, gangly boy with the red turban of the Church of the Red Museum. Loud, obnoxious car honking and the screeching of tires on pavement soon followed the boy, as someone clearly made every effort to harass the young man. Mulder's frown darkened and he began to rise to see what was happening.

"What's going on?" Scully frowned as Mulder got a better look out of the window, before spinning around to grab his coat.

"I think the sperm posse just rode into town."

She blinked at Mulder's retreating figure as he strode angrily and purposefully towards the door. The proprietor of the restaurant watched him go with wide, surprised eyes.

"I'll…" Scully began when the owner turned his confused gaze towards her, expectantly. "I'll just pay up." She hastily reached into her pocket and produced two twenty dollar bills, enough to cover dinner and then some. She left them on the table as she grabbed her overcoat, and rushed out the door after her partner.

Mulder stood surrounded by defiant looking, angry teenagers, all watching him with varying degrees of mutiny and annoyance. The leader of the group practically stood toe-to-toe with her tall, lanky partner and if he didn't watch it soon could be under arrest for attempting to assault a federal officer. Hoping to intercede before that happened, she rushed over, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Mulder," she called worriedly, wondering if she should offer to run back inside and give the sheriff a call. The boy stood sneering at Mulder, lips curled, cast her a dismissive glance as she walked up, slipping on her coat.

"Yeah, well, why don't you run along with the little wife? You're going to miss the tour bus," he spat out at Mulder, his friends tittering behind him thinking this answer was particularly witty. All except for one of the girls with them, she was eyeing Scully. More specifically she was eyeing her right side, under her jacket.

"She's got a gun," she breathed to the boy, the obvious leader, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

"Well, what's she going to do? Shoot us? Go call my dad, Katie, I think he'd like to hear about this." He looked triumphant at the pair of them. It finally clicked with Scully just who he meant his father was.

"Who's your dad," Mulder asked, though she could tell the realization was dawning on him as well.

"He's the sheriff." The boy grinned darkly, challenging Mulder to make something of it.

That boy didn't know at all to whom he was talking, Scully softly snorted, as Mulder fought the urge to grin knowingly at the arrogant jackass. Instead he glanced sideways to Scully, obviously amused by this little pisshead that hid behind his father's badge while he tormented the town.

"Yeah, I think he would like to hear about this," Mulder agreed.

Obviously his lack of fear at the boy's empty threat made the others in the pack nervous. One boy shuffled worriedly in the back and called out to his leader. "Come on! Let's just get out of here, Rick."

Rick, the sheriff's son, didn't like hearing this sort of talk. But even he must have caught on that neither she nor Mulder was particularly impressed or worried about his threat of calling the sheriff. He chose instead to glare angrily at Mulder before moving past the wall that was her partner, deliberately shoving into him, hard, as if they were standing each other off in the middle of a high school hallway. As he sauntered off to his parked truck, she and Mulder watched the others teenagers follow.

God, she sighed, had kids really gotten worse in the time since she had graduated high school, or was it just this particular batch? "Kind of hard to tell the villains without a scorecard."

"Tell me about it," Mulder mused as Rick and his gang pulled out screeching from in front of the restaurant and tore down the road, music blaring from their stereo.

"You think he'll say anything to Sheriff Mazeroski about it?"

"Nah." Mulder shook his head negatively, watching the red taillights disappear in the distance. "It would only cause his father to question why it is he had a confrontation with two federal agents. And I think Rick there likes to keep his nefarious activities as low a profile from his dad as possible."

"How can he miss them? Half the town has got to be talking about what a jerk his son is," Scully wondered. It wasn't a large community at all and surely Rick's behavior hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Perhaps the community encourages it," Mulder replied darkly. "The sheriff just barely hides his disdain for the Church of the Red Museum, and kids are perceptive, they pick up on the opinions of their parents, often carrying them out to a cruel and hurtful end."

"Why does the Church stay here if they are so persecuted?" She glanced towards the red turbaned boy who had wandered off in the opposite direction during the stand off between Mulder and his persecutors.

"Why has any faith stood up in the face of those who oppress them over the centuries?" He shrugged philosophically. "It makes them stronger."

Ah, martyrdom, Scully thought. That was a concept she could understand well. "Is that why you stick with the X-files then?" She waited mischievously for him to glare at her before grinning broadly and laughing.

"I don't know, you know more about saints than I do, Scully. Do I qualify?"

"I think the Pope can make a dispensation for you. Maybe name you as Blessed."

"What miracles have I pulled off lately?" He snorted.

"Should I start on the list now or later," she replied, taking his arm and leading him back to their parked car. "Come on, I paid up already."

"You have a list?" He was far too pleased by this idea. "What's on it?"

"I don't know, the fact that you haven't keeled over from lack of sleep yet might be on the list."

"Maybe that only makes me a zombie." Disturbingly enough, he sounded as if he rather liked the idea of being a zombie.

"I take that back, Mulder, you're far too weird to ever be a saint."

"I don't know, you can't tell me some of those saints weren't touched in the head. St. Francis of Assisi? Man gave up everything to become homeless and frolic with animals like Snow White."

Frolic like Snow White? Scully choked as she rounded the car, staring at Mulder over its top. "Mulder, if you were Catholic you'd go to so many kinds of hell for that statement."

"Good thing I'm an atheist, Scully, I just have to deal with the hell on this earth." He winked at her as he got into the car.


	50. I Know That Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully contemplates the monstrous side of humanity.

Scully wondered if there would ever stop being human monsters in this world. Perhaps it was her own recent experience with Donnie Pfaster and Duane Barry, not to mention the men who had taken her. It could be the numerous, innocent people, injured, wounded or killed that came through her emergency room when she was a medical student, barely able to keep up with the crying and dying around her. Sometimes she wondered if it hearkened all the way back to the day, when she was thirteen, and her mother told her that her Sunday School teacher had been viciously murdered, an innocent, taken well before his time. Scully hated those who preyed on the innocent. Gerd Thomas was one of those who liked to prey on those who had done no wrong. His mild behavior, and his rheumy, blank eyes that said that he was harmless didn't fool her. He stared up into Mulder's face. Thomas might believe he was a sick man, but obviously his belief didn't stretch out enough for him to bother getting help, to coming clean about his activities. Had he ever apologized for what he had done to those children? Did he really, truly believe it was wrong? She wanted to shout at him, to tell him what a sick bastard he was. Instead she watched, silent, as Mulder grilled him with the wry, detached manner. 

Frankly she was surprised as anyone he was managing to keep his cool. Mulder usually always had a soft spot for cases with kids, especially anyone attempting to do harm. Those cases would always lead to Samantha in his mind. For Scully, all she could think of was the harming of the innocents, people who became objects by men like this, used and abused and then ruthlessly set aside. It sickened her to look at the man. She turned away, staring out the window in the small, room, turning out Thomas and Mulder's conversation. She wondered where she had seen Thomas before. Despite his nearly forgettable features, he had been somewhere they had been in the recent days. It was a small enough town, she was sure he could have been anywhere. Somewhere with the cows, she thought. She tried piecing it together, as Mulder's voice rose sharply and she glanced back to see Mulder's temper finally get pushed to something resembling a breaking point. He slammed down a photograph of Rick Mazeroski, dead and lifeless as he stared up into the camera, and shoved Gerd Thomas's face towards it.

"Did you kidnap Rick Mazeroski? Did you write that on his back?" Mulder bellowed, his voice harsh and demanding. For half a moment Scully wondered if she should intercede, if Mulder was really beginning to lose his cool completely, and would need her to stop him from doing serious damage to a potential suspect. But she relaxed when Thomas, wide eyed and frightened, stammered a "yes".

Mulder was simply trying to break through the vile man's equanimity, she reasoned. Might as well allow him to do what he did. It clicked then where she had seen Gerd Thomas. The day before, when they had gone out to the fields, he had been out there, working. She perhaps wouldn't have noticed him if it hadn't been for someone else, something else that had caught her attention and her memory. What was that? She lacked Mulder's eidetic memory, the ability he had to run through images in his mind like others could run videotape. But she did think back, trying to remember what it was about that field that had struck her, about when they were leaving and what she had seen that had stood out in her memory. There was a blue car, a nondescript sedan, and in it was a man, Caucasian, tall, with a crew cut and a military bearing that had struck her as being similar too….

In a flash she was back on the dark, lonely bridge in Washington, holding her breath as she waited for the exchange to go down. Deep Throat held in his hands the strange flask with the creature in it, the being that he swore held alien DNA. All Scully wanted was Mulder's return, after he had foolishly gone to try and find Dr. Secare. She waited and watched in her rear view mirror as a tall, crew-cut man with a military bearing stepped out of the white van, took the box containing the Erlenmeyer Flask and then turned and shot Deep Throat at point blank range. She blinked as in her mind the gunshots rang out and Deep Throat's blood covered her hands, her overcoat, as his last words whispered through her brain. "Trust no one," he gasped to her, before dying in her arms.

Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at Thomas, then at Mulder. Neither had noticed her swiftly paling face or the stunned look of dawning realization. Perhaps that was a blessing, as she whispered, "Excuse me," and rose without another look at Mulder, rushing out of room and into the larger office of the Delta Glen Sheriff's Department. One of the deputies watched as she closed the door, inquisitive from where he sat behind one of the desks. Obviously he was curious about what was going on in that room. She couldn't imagine he hadn't have heard about what had happened. In small towns, such news spreads like wildfire.

Scully composed herself, smoothing her features into calm, dispassionate lines. "Excuse me?" She found her voice finally. "Have you received that toxicology report I ordered yesterday yet?"

The deputy blinked somewhat shamefully, as he nodded, grabbing the file. "We had them sent over from Madison this morning, ma'am." He passed the folder over to her as she took a look at it, studying the compound that had been found in the late Dr. Larsen's vials. It took her a moment to realize just what it was she was looking at, as her memory jogged itself back to the man with the military crew cut, to Deep Throat, to Ann Carpenter, the woman who had helped her initially study this compound and who had died for it. It was the same compound that Mulder had in her own file on record, the compound they had found in her blood stream when she had been returned, near death. Scully's stomach roiled as she stared at it. This had been what Dr. Larsen had carried in his briefcase and quiet possibly had been inoculating all of these children with. Purity Control. 

Scully's mouth went horribly dry. She turned and stared at the door she had just come out of. Realization hit her square in her middle. As disgusting as she found Gerd Thomas to be, he wasn't responsible for hurting these children, nor for murdering Rick Mazeroski. He might be a vile pedophile, but unlike Donnie Pfaster he hadn't taken his fetish quite to murder just yet. No, this was a much bigger and deeper problem, and it all came back to whatever was in that phial she had taken. She moved swiftly back to the door and entered again, shooting Mulder a meaningful glance as Gerd Thomas murmured to him. She called his name softly, drawing her partner's attention. Mulder had been sitting across from Thomas and he rose to meet her at the door, using his tall height and broad shoulders to block her off enough to give them a small ounce of privacy. She glanced past his shoulder to Gerd, who sat staring mournfully at the chair that Mulder had just occupied.

"I think he's telling the truth," she murmured quietly enough she didn't think that Thomas could hear her. "I don't think he killed anyone."

"How can you be so sure," Mulder demanded, incredulous, a surprising trait for him, considering he rarely ever questioned her when she was this certain on something. She tried not to be offended as she realized that perhaps Thomas's crimes had gotten under Mulder's skin more than she had thought.

"I just got the toxicology report back on the broken vials. The residual substance couldn't be analyzed because it contained synthetic corticosteroids with unidentified amino acids." He stared expectantly at her, waiting for her to translate for him. "That's Purity Control, Mulder."

The tendon in Mulder's jaw worked tightly again as he nodded, and without a word ushered her out of the door, not even glancing back towards Gerd Thomas. As they stepped out, he motioned to the deputy just outside the door and waved him back towards the small room.

"Do you know what you are saying, Scully" Mulder abruptly asked as soon as the deputy was gone, his eyes flashing as she saw the wheels of Mulder's mind whirl, spinning the information she had into the larger picture only he seemed to ever fully believe.

"The man who died in that plane crash was inoculating those kids with antibodies derived from what may have been an extraterrestrial source." She had at least determined it wasn't of this Earth, she reasoned.

"He's been injecting those kids with alien DNA," Mulder insisted, eyes already fever bright as he realized what this meant.

"No, Mulder, that was never proven conclusively."

"But it's the same substance we found in the Erlenmeyer flask, isn't it? The same material my Deep Throat contact died for."

Died in her arms, she remembered. "Yes," she admitted.

"It all makes sense, the money in the briefcase," Mulder continued persistently. "They've been conducting an experiment here. Somebody's been paying to have those kids injected with alien DNA to see how they'd react. It's been going on for years."

Inoculating them for what, Scully asked herself, as she recalled the horror and wonder both she and Anne Carpenter felt when they had discovered just what it was in those vials. This wasn't gene therapy. None of these children were suffering from any disease that required it. And yet she had read up for months while the X-files were closed on the US Army's experiments with all manner of viral warfare. She had found nothing conclusive, on anything. Why would they experiment then on innocent children in the Midwest of all places? And what exactly was this virus that seemed to bring out this horrible, violent tendencies in these children?

"Does that man know anything about it," she wondered, knowing she had seen Gerd Thomas out in the fields, just before she had seen the crew cut man.

"No," Mulder replied, and looked slightly forgiving towards the room where the man was still held. "He's just some poor soul who blew their cover. I don't think he knows any more than he's telling us."

"Well, I think his boss must have, because they just found him shot to death in a cow pasture." And she was fairly certain she knew why it was the crew cut man had driven out to that pasture just moments after they left.

"What?" Mulder hadn't seen the crew cut man, neither that night on the bridge nor later as they had driven past him heading out to the cow pasture.

"I think I know who shot him, Mulder. That man that I recognized on the road today, that's the same man that executed Deep Throat."

Mulder stared at her in open disbelief, as even more pieces fell into place for him. He jerked up, glancing around the office quickly, before turning back to her, eyes ablaze.

"Well, whoever is behind this, he's here covering their tracks. He's going to go after the kids. You get the sheriff and meet me at Gary Kane's apartment." His turned from her, long, loping strides urgently moving towards the front doors of the sheriff's office. He paused though, before reaching the door, turning to glance at her. "Scullym I want this guy alive."

Of course, Scully thought a she watched him practically run out the door and to their car outside. Because if they could get this crew cut man alive, he would be the proof for Mulder that someone was up to some sort of experiments involving the strange and foreign Purity Control. But that was only part of the equation, she realized. That man worked for someone and whether that someone was the US Army or some other entity, perhaps a pharmaceutical company or weapons manufacturer, it was hard to tell. Certainly she knew that Purity Control was nothing that anyone could find in nature on this earth. But that wasn't to say it couldn't have been produced in a lab, some sort of experiment funded by a powerful entity that wanted to keep its work secure and it's experiments private. The crew cut man would know. But she doubted that the fellow was going to talk. If he was ruthless enough to kill Deep Throat, he knew the cost of revealing the work his employers did. He wouldn't just give up the information willingly even if they did happen to arrest him. And if they didn't, she imagined, he could just as easily kill Mulder as be taken in by them alive.

"Agent Scully?" Sheriff Mazeroski rounded a corner of his office, frowning as Scully stood there, file in hand. "What's wrong?"

"Sheriff," she blinked at him, Mulder's parting words coming back to her. "We'll need all of your men. We need to gather all the children in town."

"What?" Mazeroski stared, open mouthed at her, as if she had just asked him to part the Red Sea. "Why?"

"The compound we found in the vials is a genetically engineered virus. Dr. Larsen had been injecting all the children in town with it." She frowned with worry as she thought of the crew cut man. "And I think that whoever developed it has sent someone here to hide the evidence."

"Hide the…" The sheriff's eyes bulged briefly, as it occurred to him just what she was saying. "Rick?"

"He might be a part of that, yes," she acknowledged sadly to the man, whose grief and loss at his only son threatened to overwhelm him momentarily. His bottom lip trembled as he nodded to her, his eyes filling with angry tears.

"I'll get my boys to help you out, however they can," he mumbled his assurances. "We'll get everyone's kids gathered up."

"Thank you, Sheriff," Scully murmured, sincerely grateful to the man who had stuck his neck out in calling the FBI in the first place, at the cost of his only child. She felt for the man who had become wrapped up in the same plot that had threatened bother herself and Mulder, a plot that she still little understood or comprehended. After all, she realized sadly, if they were willing to kill her to hide their secrets, why wouldn't they be willing to kill a teenage boy?


	51. Chapter 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully writes up her report.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, the plastic clicking furiously under the weight of her thoughts, her report flying into place almost as quickly as her brain could piece it together. She glanced at the coalescing picture of their investigation, frowning at the words that flashed up on the screen. It wasn't exactly a picture she was pleased or happy about as an investigator.

_File number XWC060361. The identity of the man shot in the slaughterhouse has yet to be determined. His name, any record or artifact of his past, present or immigration status have yet to be found. His fingerprints are not on file in either the FBI or National System of Records. At this time, it remains doubtful that anyone will come forward to identify or claim the body._

_Under further analysis, the inoculates found in the broken vials was isolated and determined to be an unstable antibody of no known biological origin. After three weeks of study, the components of the serum, probably synthetic, have broken down structurally and, in this retrograde state, cannot be analyzed further. This coincides with the development of a severe and undiagnosed flu-like ailment affecting the children who were believed to be inoculated, as well as some of the local families. To date, none of the congregants or members of the Church of the Red Museum have contracted this illness. I suspect they may have been used them as a control group by whoever was running these tests. The shipping manifests for what is believed to be milk and beef tainted by the unspecified inoculates do not provide enough information to track their destinations. A local advisory and quarantine have been established. Further inquiry into the tainted beef has been promised by the pertinent government health agencies._

She felt her brow furrow and a bitter smile twist her mouth as she typed the final sentence to her report. The FBI investigation into this case was currently at a standstill. The case remained open and unsolved. She stared at the last sentence in angry dissatisfaction. They had nothing to report because there were no traces of anything to find. Not the Purity Control compound, not the inoculations, not even the man with the crew cut. He had been killed by the grief stricken Sheriff Mazeroski, horrified at what had been done to his town, to his only child. It was unfortunate, she admitted, and to Mulder it had been crushing. But neither of them had the heart to draw up any formal charges against the sheriff. After all, the man had initially thought it was possession. The horrifying reality had nearly destroyed him.

"How is the report coming," Mulder set a tall cup of what smelled like Starbucks by her elbow as she looked up at him gratefully. In the darkness of their office his face was shadowed, but she knew there was frustration and disappointment in his eyes. He had been so close once again, only to have his proof destroyed. It seemed to be the story of Fox Mulder's life, almost reaching the mountaintop only to have it give way at the last moment.

"I think I'm done with it." She watched the cursor on the screen pulse behind the world "unsolved". It left a bitter taste in her mouth, one she tried to swig away with a large gulp of coffee. As usual he got it just the way she liked it. Mulder was always thoughtful like that.

"Skinner's not going to be thrilled with us though." she sighed, turning back to him as he grabbed the chair from behind his desk and pulled it over to the table she used. "It's a lot of uproar for far too little result."

"We can't give him something when they've destroyed all the evidence." Mulder pulled dejectedly from his own large cup of coffee. "You and I both know what those test tubes contained."

"But the substance broke down in the systems of those kids. We can't analyze anymore because there is nothing viable left. My guess is that if these kids were being inoculated with Purity Control, it was at such a low grade level that, without frequent boosters, simply turned into its component parts in the blood stream and resulted in the symptoms the kids are exhibiting now."

"That way no one could trace it should it ever come to light," Mulder conjectured, glaring angrily at nothing in particular as he slumped backwards into his seat, just barely keeping his coffee from spilling out of its cup.

"That's the thing, Mulder, they had been doing this for years. Dr. Larsen's credit card records showed that he's had patients he's been treating for better than a decade. No one had any idea until now what was going on, and then they decide to cover it up."

"Because of the rapes." Mulder's was low and gravely in thought as he scrubbed his face with his free hand. "You heard the old man who approached us. The kids were displaying violent, abnormal behavior. It was only a matter of time before someone would start asking questions as to why. And with all of the furor being raised about growth hormones in cattle and milk, it would only take a few short steps for them to go from kids raised in Wisconsin cattle country, to hormones, to Purity Control, and they can't afford that."

For the briefest of moments, Scully's brain flashed back to the last conversation she had with Deep Throat, right at the exchange that saved Mulder's life but took his own. In 1987, a group of children from a southern state were given what their parents thought was a routine inoculation. What they were injected with was a clone DNA from the contents of that package you're holding as a test. That's the kind of people you're dealing with.

"They've been doing these sorts of tests for years, Mulder, all over the country." She rubbed the space between her eyebrows, suddenly feeling very tired, weary as it occurred to her just what lengths the men running these tests were going to. "As best as I can understand, they are developing some sort of virus, that is the basis for Purity Control. They are running secret inoculation programs. But whether that is because they fear it as a weapon used on our populous or they are testing it as a potential weapon on other populations, I haven't been able to figure out." Despite all of the research she had done while the X-files had been shut down, she had turned up very little on the subject. Unsurprisingly, with the avenues afforded her in the X-files closed, she had come up empty on the subject.

"Are you so sure it's a weapon," he asked quietly.

She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, resisting the urge to roll her eyes in irritation at him, at where he was going with this. "Mulder, I said that this virus was extraterrestrial because it is made up of compounds not found naturally on this earth. Thus, by the strictest of definitions, this virus would be extraterrestrial. That doesn't make it alien."

"You saw what was in that Erlenmeyer flask."

"I don't know what I saw in that flask, Mulder?" And frankly she didn't know if she wanted to know. "What I saw could have been a horribly mutated human being, a creature created in a lab specifically for this purpose. What I understand is that our military knew something about it, else they wouldn't have had it in the first place, and someone wanted it enough they were willing to swap your life for it." She recalled the terror she felt as Mulder's body was dumped unceremoniously into the road as the white van carrying the crew cut man and the Erlenmeyer flask sped off into the night.

"Why is it then those kids were reacting the way they did," Mulder insisted, mildly belligerent, his heavy eyelids lowering at her in challenge as he rocked slightly in his leaned back seat. "You can't tell me those inoculations didn't have something to do with it."

"They may have," she conceded. "But without the ability to test it further, Mulder, we will never know."

Back at square one again, and damn it pissed him off. She could see the anger bristling in him, not at her, but the situation in general. He scrubbed his face viciously again. "It's not just kids they are infecting with this, Scully. This is what was making you so sick when they brought you back, this virus."

"I know," she sighed. "And I don't understand it any more than I did before then. I don't know what it does, why they use it, or what its purpose is. All I know, Mulder, is that you and I know about it, but we have no proof. And we can't go to Skinner declaring that the US Military is running secret tests on innocent school children. All we can go to him with is that there was some sort of antibody being used and that the investigation is still ongoing."

He hated hearing that; she knew he hated hearing that. But it was the best they had.

"You ever wonder why we keep bucking our head against a brick wall, Scully," he breathed softly, his eyes almost slits in his haggard looking face.

"Persistence," she offered half-jokingly. He didn't laugh. He didn't even smile.

"Remember what you told me about little green men and George Hale?"

She vaguely did, but shook her head negatively, knowing he'd remember it better than she would.

"Even if George Hale only saw elves in his mind, the telescope still got built." He sighed, sitting up. "That's because George Hale never mentioned the elves to anyone else, so they took him much more seriously."

"Mulder," she sighed, biting her lip as she watched him. "We have come too far in this to blow off the truths we know. We will find the evidence."

"Do you think so?"

"I have to think so, Mulder." Why else would she have come back from everything that she did? "I have to believe that."

He nodded, slowly, sitting forward and rising, as if aching and tired. "Print out whatever you want, Scully, I'll sign off on it for Skinner."

"You don't have anything to add?"

He paused for long moments, standing over her. "Not that you could say to our boss, no."

He turned, reaching for his briefcase and swinging it from behind the desk where it sat. "I'm heading home, Scully. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Night, Mulder," she called, watching him as he wandered, shoulders bowed, down the hall.


	52. Early Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully preps for their next case.

Michelle Charters looked as if she had been savaged by a violent gang rape. Scully studied the woman in the grainy video, dark haired and perhaps pretty, if her face hadn't been covered with contusions and lacerations that swelled her cheekbones and nearly sealed shut one of her eyes. Something in Scully's brain was outraged by her appearance, that someone would do this to a woman. It was that primal feeling of sisterly kinship, that understanding that all women seemed to share of their own fragility and how it often was taken advantage of by those who could brutalize them by sheer, brute force. The rational side of Scully's brain, however, had trouble buying into Michelle Charters's claims of spiritual rape. She frowned at the stack of files at her elbow, only part of the amount she had been able to pull up concerning such supernatural attacks on women. Certainly there seemed to be many claims of it, from the lonely, misunderstood high school girl who swore to have been raped by a ghost, to the middle aged woman who said an unseen attacker had savaged her in her own home. Scully didn't know if she should pity these poor women or sympathize with them. In many of the cases it was unclear if any of the women had been victimized at all, but in some, much like in Michelle Charters's case, there was hard, physical evidence that someone had physically and sexually damaged these women. The problem was trying to determine if the brutalization was indeed from some sort of spiritual entity, as the women claimed, or merely a fabrication, either knowingly or unknowingly, on their part. It was difficult to say, and as an investigator and as a woman the last thing Scully wanted to do was to start dismissing claims of abuse just because of the nature of the claims of attack.

Still, she glanced down at the letter that Michelle Charters had included in the video she had sent. She was placing a lawsuit, claiming Federal labor laws had been violated by her employer, the Excelsius Dei Convalescent Home. And that made this case so much more complicated. Now it was beginning to look like a bid for money for a disgruntled employee, one who would perhaps fake an injury in order to win a case in court. And if she couldn't easily lay the blame at the feet of one of the other employees, then perhaps she could lay the blame on a spiritual attack. Still, that seemed an awful strange way to go about something like that. After all, what court in the world would accept rape from an unknown, unseen entity?

Still…there was some physical evidence….

She rewound the tape and played it again, her brain swirling as she tried to piece together just what was going on with this as footsteps sounded down the hallway. It occurred to her for the briefest of moments that she was sitting at Mulder's desk, in Mulder's chair, using the video machine. He might become worried about that, especially considering the unmarked video she had found in the VCR again. She had tried to politely ask him to keep his more racy movies away from the office, but had already resolved to herself that this was most likely a losing battle at best. Instead she had simply taken it out of the machine and deposited it in the desk drawer that held all of Mulder's other unmarked movies.

As predicted, Mulder's steps stopped at the doorway, and Scully imagined he had that stoic, slightly panicked look on his face, wide eyed and speechless as he watched her sitting back there. She glanced mildly at him over her shoulder. "Good morning."

"Whatever tape you found in that VCR, it isn't mine," he automatically protested.

"Good," she drawled lazily. "Because I put it back in that drawer with all those other videos that aren't yours."

The relief on his face made her smile as he curiously moved to see just what it was Scully was watching on the television.

"Well that definitely isn't mine," Mulder muttered, clearly bothered by the severely battered face of Michelle Charters.

"No. This is Michelle Charters. She's a registered nurse at a convalescent home in Worchester, Massachusetts."

"What happened to her?" He was clearly bothered, but just as curious. Mulder almost always had a heart for cases of victimization. Despite his stint in Violent Crimes, she always knew that there was a part of Mulder that cringed to see the weak violated, a part of him that felt it was his duty to fix those situations.

"According to Miss Charters, she was raped. The abrasions and contusions here would be consistent with her claims as would be the medical report which cites the kind of injury and tearing associated with sexual trauma." Mulder winced slightly, but nodded.

"Where did you get this? Violent Crimes?"

"No. The woman made the video herself. It seems that no one will believe her story." This didn't surprise Scully in the least.

"Why not?"

"Because she claims to have been raped by an invisible entity, a spirit being." She knew that would perk Mulder's interest.

It did. His eyes lit up as he immediately moved towards the filing cabinets, most likely to start pulling some of the very files she already had sitting on the desk beside her. "I have several X-Files that document similar cases."

"I know." She held up one and waved it at him as he turned frowning at her. "I've been here since six this morning going through them."

That pleased him, clearly.

"Well, then you none of them have ever been substantiated," he replied promptly. This would explain why there were so many of them and Mulder had done so little to investigate them. Not that she could blame him; these sorts of cases were notoriously touchy and problematic for the FBI to begin with.

"Yes. But this case is different." She pulled out Michelle Charters letter.

"Why?"

"The victim has filed a lawsuit against the government. She seems to be certain who the spirit being is." She waved the letter at him, as he took it from her, scanning through it quickly.

"One of the residents, eh?" Mulder's skepticism was evident as he glanced up at her over the top of the paper. "I suppose it's possible, after all she doesn't look like a very large woman." He shrugged mildly. "And just because the rest of you is going doesn't mean the libido is. I think Hugh Hefner is proof positive of that."

"You're personal hero, Mulder?" 

"Every man wants to be as cool as Hef, Scully." He passed her back the letter. "Doesn't make sense why she's claiming spiritual rape if she knows the attacker is a physical person."

"Unless he didn't do it and she's looking to make a quick dollar off of her work using someone else's mistreatment of her," Scully pointed out in the interest of objectivity.

"It's a possibility," Mulder agreed, frowning at the paused image of Michelle Charters's severely bruised face. "Perhaps an abusive boyfriend, got a little too rough, she thought perhaps she could use the situation to her benefit. We won't know till we check it out."

"So you want us to take the case," Scully asked, already seeing Mulder's mind picking through the evidence as it stood and beginning to draw conclusions.

"Was it ever a doubt, Scully?" He frowned at her still sitting in his desk chair. "Comfortable?"

Well, if she was honest with herself, yes she was. After all, Mulder had a proper desk chair, while she had some broken down reject that had made its way to the basement. Granted, she thought as she dangled her feet, it was a bit too tall for her short legs, but she could adjust it. Mulder didn't seem to think this was a good idea.

"Fine," she sighed, pouting as she got up. "But I highly protest the fact that you have a comfortable chair and I don't."

"Scully, do you really want to get too comfortable in this office? I mean, then you would turn into me."

"I couldn't possibly be fascinated enough with porn to turn into you, Mulder."


	53. Spreading "Amour"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully has some words with Mulder on sexism.

Hal Arden looked as if he could barely manage getting to the toilet on his own, let alone attacking a woman. Scully studied the spindly old man, with wrists smaller around than her own, try unsuccessfully to manage his way out of the stainless steel tub he was in. Beside him, one of the nursing attendants, a studious, dutiful looking Asian man, gently grabbed Hal's scarecrow-like elbows as he wrapped a large, white fluffy towel around the elderly man's shriveled waist. Mulder shot her a knowing sideways glance. She chose to ignore it.

"You've got to be kidding me," Hal chuckled, his voice wheezing over a disbelieving laugh. "And what do I think about her claims? I should be in the Guinness Record Book! I'm 74 years old. I've got plumbing older than this building. Hmmm?"

Ignoring the attendants attempts to keep him discreetly robed, Hal pulled open the towel to expose himself to the pair of them, surprising Scully as she fought to keep her professional cool in the face of something so shocking. She had seen naked, old men before, but often they were dead and on her autopsy table. It was something else for one to flash her just to give example to the fact that had he wanted to, he couldn't have raped Michelle Charters. And indeed, she thought, as she glimpsed at his shriveled genitalia, wasted by what looked like the effects of prostate cancer and age, it was becoming highly suspicious he had anything to do with the attack. She turned her eyes away, fighting the embarrassment that Mulder clearly didn't feel. He grinned, nodding in acknowledgement to the older man.

"And it don't work much better, either." Hal sniffed, wrapping the towel back around himself as the nursing attendant slipped a large rope over the old man's shriveled shoulders.

"Thank you for sharing." Mulder was clearly amused. He would be, Scully thought sourly. Mulder probably aspired to be an old man like Hal someday. "Are you aware you're being named in a lawsuit against the federal government?"

"I am?" Hal was clearly surprised, but was equally bemused.

"Did you ever threaten Miss Charters," she asked, as Hal shook his head, frowning irritably at her and turning his ear towards her.

"What?" He bellowed louder than necessary.

"Did you ever threaten Miss Charters," Scully repeated louder.

"Threaten? It was harmless, for crying out loud. Ever since this 'sex harassment' fad, men can't say what's on their minds."

Scully could only imagine what "harmless" was to a man who remembered when women were commonly called "dames". She bit her tongue, though, and ignored the grin she could sense coming from Mulder.

"She says you made advances," Scully persisted, as Hal frowned at her, clearly unable to hear her again, or at least faking it to be obstinate and irritating.

"Advances?" He was querulous as she raised her eyebrows at him. This whole line of discussion clearly annoyed him. He rolled his eyes at her. "If I told you that you were a very pretty woman and I would like to show you some affection, would you be offended, huh?"

She wanted to snap that this wasn't about her, but Scully refrained. Hal was trying to bait her. He was agitated she kept persisting with her line of questioning when clearly, at least to most other observers, the idea of him raping anyone was nigh on ludicrous. She glanced sideways at Mulder, who still looked far too amused by this whole exchange. Pity she couldn't kick him, she thought as she darkly eyed her partner's shin.

Hal picked up on their silent exchange. His looked at Mulder with honest apology. "I didn't mean to step on your toes there." He cast Scully a sideways, appraising look.

She should have been insulted, and she was with the high-handedness the misogynist jerk, but she was far to amused by the brief, startled look on Mulder's face. He backpedaled, stunned. "It's all right. There seems to be some confusion here."

Hal seemed to shrug this off, his thin shoulders hunching under his robe. "Yeah. I though Nurse 'What's-Her-Name' said she was rogered by a ghost. I may have one foot in the grave, but I certainly can't fly down hallways spreading amour." He cackled loudly at the very idea.

"Apparently not," Mulder affirmed loudly as the elderly man waved to the nursing assistant and began making his way out of the bathroom. 

"If that's what it's like in heaven, Lord, take me now." Hal's horse laughter rang through the large, old tiled bathroom and down the dim hallway. Something about the sound made Scully's skin crawl.

"What do you think, Mulder?" She asked, glancing at her bemused partner.

"About the guy's plumbing?".

"About his story," she corrected, resisting the urge to smack him.

"I think this will turn out to be a huge waste of time just like all the other X-Files on entity rape. Unsubstantiated phenomena."

"But in a substantiated crime," she persisted, following Mulder's long strides out of the bathroom and into the dusty, ancient hallway of the Excelsius Dei Convalescent Home. "We can't deny the evidence that something happened to Michelle Charters."

"But we have no evidence that the perpetrator is anything more than human," Mulder replied practically. "Scully, I'm not denying that something happened to Michelle Charters. Perhaps she can't remember her attacker. Perhaps she doesn't want to remember. She could just be lying."

"Is that why you haven't investigated any of the other cases," she shot back, perhaps with more peevishness than was totally necessary. Mulder stopped in the hallway and turned on her.

"Scully, don't make this into one of those men, women things."

"What do you mean men, women things?" Now he was crossing into dangerous territory, albeit it at her own goading. She crossed her arms in challenge as she stared up at him, waiting for him to inevitably stumble and plant his foot in something.

Mulder was a bit too cagey for that. "Scully, don't start with me. You know that where women are concerned I have nothing but respect."

"But you thought Hal was funny in there," she snapped, outraged that he egged the atrocious behavior on.

"The man's in his 70's! He's too old to care about what he says to anyone anymore, as evidenced by the little nudy show he put on for us."

"And that gives him the right to harass Michelle Charters?"

"You're assuming that he did," Mulder replied.

"You're assuming that he didn't," she retorted evenly.

"What, a man can't say that he likes a woman's ass anymore?"

"Did it ever occur to you that a woman might like being treated as an object to be ogled? Perhaps you hadn't noticed, judging from the copious collection of videos that 'aren't yours' in your desk drawer."

Mulder's mouth closed with a snap and his jaw worked in angry irritation. If she wanted to pick a fight with him, she had succeeded.

"This is that Anita Hill thing, isn't it?" They stood challenging each other from opposite sides of the hallway.

"Mulder, this is more than about what some law professor may or may not have said years ago. Michelle Charters was raped, there is no denying the medical evidence on that."

"And yet you are supposing that a few lewd remarks for an old man who hasn't seen sex in thirty years makes him the perpetrator." Coming from Mulder, her rationality certainly seemed…well, askew. And she knew it. But it upset her that he was so quick to dismiss Michelle Charters's claims.

"Something attacked her, Mulder."

"And I agree there, but I don't think this is an X-file. There is no evidence that suggest it to be anything other than an attack by a perfectly normal, if not sick human. And short of you proving to me that Hal Alden is switching bodies into a six-foot-two, two-hundred pound man in order to attack Michelle Charters, we have no evidence that anything paranormal or unexplainable has happened here."

She scowled at him, but knew he was right. Damn it all, she grumbled, he was unfortunately right. The idea that this woman's attack could not be substantiated by any physical evidence was an injustice. And there would be no way to prove it or to prosecute what had happened to her.

"Scully," Mulder's irritation had died down to a concerned frown as he watched her thoughtfully. "Why is it that you are so invested in this?"

"What do you mean?" It was a case, they were FBI agents, and it should be obvious to him.

"I just…worry, that's all." He shrugged. "I know that after what you've been through, to have a case like this…"

"Mulder, for God sakes, not every case is because of some underlying feeling of anger and helplessness for what I've been through," she snapped. "Has it occurred to you that maybe I want to help Michelle because of the fact that there are cases like hers sitting in our files that you've ignored? That there are women who face sexual, physical and emotional abuse everyday whose stories are discounted by men who can't be bothered to looking into the truth, because of course the woman's story is irrational?"

"Right," he nodded, though he didn't look like he believed her. "We have a meeting with this Dawson woman who runs the facility. Perhaps we should go track her down, huh?"

He turned away from her, his trench coat swirling around him slightly as he went. Scully swore softly under her breath. She had no reason to pick on him, she knew that, but it irked her how little he was taking this case seriously. If it had been her instead of Michelle Charters, would he have reacted differently? He had reacted differently when it was her who had been taken and attacked. She knew that. And it upset her all the more his dismissive towards this woman.

"Dinner will be fun tonight" she groused as she followed behind the long, quick strides of her partner, not looking forward to the rest of this case with him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I love Mulder, I do...the sexism has bugged the crap out of me. For all he respects Scully, I see it all over the show. In light of recent weeks, I must admit, it kind of does bother me a lot. But, I think Scully could more than hold her own in regards to that.


	54. If I Ever Leave This World Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder muses on getting older.

The colors were so bright they couldn't help but draw the eye. Her eyes flickered towards them even as the orderlies on duty looked embarrassed as they went about their duties.

"Okay, Rembrandt, 6 o'clock. Dinner time." The blonde, fit man seemed not to care that Leo, the pictures artist, was only partially done with his work. Scully could see the look of irritation that flit across the older gentleman's face as he ignored the insistence of the younger, pushier nursing assistant.

"Come on Dorothy, legs up and straight ahead." Another nursing assistant attended to Dorothy, Leo's fawning companion. The frail looking, older woman fussed as the young man pulled her from the table.

"Wait," she insisted in a tremulous quiver. "Leo's not finished with us."

"Leo can finish with you later," the man replied in the sort of patient tolerance most people reserved for fussy two-year-olds.

"He still has to draw the rest." Her tone was querelous.

"He'll do it later, honey." She was wheeled out despite her protests as the other orderly tried his best to out wait the stubborn Leo. Finally he gently grabbed Leo's pen, setting it down on the table.

"Come on, Leo. Don't make me embarrass you in front of your friends." The nursing assistant glanced between herself and Mulder knowingly as Leo, in resignation, allowed himself to be shuttled away from the activity table he had been sitting at and out towards the dining hall, where Scully could hear the clatter of plates and cutlery and smell something that didn't exactly have the world's most enticing aroma.

Mulder watched the entire scenario with barely disguised distaste, glowering at the back of the white-clad nursing assistant as he guided Leo's chair out of the room. "Come on, Scully, let's get out of here."

She nodded absently as she glanced down at Leo's picture, a stunning drawing that certainly looked as if it had come from a gifted hand. It appeared to be the initial sketches of a mural, done in the bright colors and slightly surreal designs that she knew were popular in murals of the 1920's and 1930's, perhaps the very time period Leo would have been active in. She had never been exactly well cultured in art, but she knew it was stunning for anyone, especially an Alzheimer's patient, to produce anything of this nature.

"Have you seen this, Mulder?" She held it up to him. He cocked his head sideways, studying it for several, long moments.

"Dorothy mentioned he had a picture in the White House. He must have been something else once upon a time."

"He's mentioned as one of Doctor Grego's patients, one of the ones he has on Denapril, his experimental drug." She frowned down at the swirl of bright colors and geometric shapes. "Mulder, even at this drugs best, it has never produced these sorts of results."

"Maybe Doctor Grego has finally found a break through with it that other tests haven't." Mulder shrugged mildly, clearly not as informed on just what this type of breakthrough would mean in the scientific community.

"With a drug like this, Mulder, Denapril wouldn't just be a treatment for Alzheimer's…it could be a cure. That would make a difference to thousands suffering from this disease all across this country."

"Perhaps enough of a difference that Michelle Charters knew she could benefit from the profits of it?" Mulder asked.

Scully stopped, frowning at him. "Don't start on this, Mulder."

"I'm not." He held up his hands defensively, pulling back from the chair and standing. "I'm just throwing that out there. Remember, every possibility."

Yes, she sighed, every possibility. Even so far as Michelle Charters faking her own attack for the benefit of a law suit, one that certainly could be handily paid for by any potential profits to be made off of Doctor Grego's work. She hated to think about that, after seeing how badly beaten she was, but she had to consider that possibility as an investigator. That sort of fraud did happen.

"Scully," Mulder murmured thoughtfully as she set down Leo's drawing. "Can you promise me something?"

"I'm not sure. Depends on what the promise is."

"When I grow old, promise me you'll never put me in a place like this." His green eyes roved the room, and indeed perhaps the entire, giant, rambling, Gothic style complex. It was truly one of those old sorts of facilities, built in the last century, that one expected to see in a black-and-white horror flick. No wonder Mulder was disturbed by it.

"How do you know I'll still even be talking to you when you are old," she challenged him, a faint smile on her lips. "The rate you are going, I might not want to speak to you tomorrow."

"If I live that long, Scully, you'll still talk to me. After all, I'll just keep pestering you until you do." He laughed as she rolled her eyes. "But seriously, would you ever want to live like this? Stuck away somewhere, forgotten by your family, treated like worse than a child by people young enough to be your grandkids?"

"I would hope I would have a family who loved me and cared for me and would keep me active well into my dotage." Scully tried to even imagine herself as a teetering, little, old woman. She would be little, no doubt about that, she was little now. She could hardly imagine herself being old with Mulder around though.

"You will have a family, Scully, I don't doubt that." Mulder spoke confidently. "I'll probably end up cranky and alone, living in a run down apartment somewhere, surviving off my pension and retirement and using it to feed my growing scotch addiction."

How very depressing was that. She frowned at him. "I would hope that you would have a family one day too, you know. After all, who's to say you won't find the woman of your dreams, settle down, and marry her?"

Perhaps that was a hopelessly romantic idea for Mulder, but the alternative, his vision of the future, was just too depressing for her to even think about. Yet, Mulder was less than impressed with her theories, as he snorted and shook his head. "Scully, I've been down that road, the entire 'boy-meets-girl, lets think about settling down' scenario. And I can promise you it hasn't exactly been a bed of roses for me."

Scully paused, her eyes widening in shock. She learned new things about Mulder everyday. "You had that serious of a relationship once?"

He realized he said something he hadn't intended to, and it infuriated him. His mouth pressed itself into a stubborn grimace. "The point is, I don't see myself being the guy who settles down with the wife and kids, and then has them around to worry about what to do with wacky, crazy grandpa who talks about aliens and monsters and waxes on about his glory days in the FBI."

"You had glory days in the FBI?" At least that got him to smile. He sighed, grabbing her elbow and guiding her out of the recreation room and into the hallway, past the dinner hall where the seniors gathered, eating their evening meal.

"The Jell-O might be nice, though," he murmured thoughtfully as they walked past.

"And you would get to ogle pretty nurses," Scully offered, helpfully.

"No I can't, you said that was sexual harassment, remember?" 

Damn him and his eidetic memory, she frowned, turning their argument from earlier against her. "You said that the old have a right to be as rude as they want."

"Well, maybe I did, but even I can't see myself molesting a pretty, young thing in my 80's, using a spiritual aid or not."

"I can't either," she admitted. "I hate to say it, Mulder, you are rather a gentleman. How is it that you get so many hate calls from women?"

"I think the women didn't find me nearly as gentlemanly as you do, Scully." He sighed in chagrin. "And I'll have you note that their numbers have dropped off precipitously."

"I have noticed that," she remarked. Since coming back as his partner, there hadn't been one angry phone call from one disgruntled secretary calling him a pig or wondering why he wasn't returning her calls. It was as if the player Mulder had suddenly dropped off the face of the planet. It rung a bell in her mind, something that Tom Colton had once said when she was still speaking to the arrogant jerk. Something about a relationship going south...

"So Scully, if we are still speaking when I get old, will you be my doctor?" There was deviltry in those words and she wasn't about to dignify them with an eye roll.

"Sure, Mulder. I'll be the one to sign off on your large, overbearing, bossy, in home nurse who will watch you like a hawk and make you do everything I, as your physician, say." She smiled sweetly up at him.

"You are a cold, cold woman, Doctor Scully."

"I wasn't known for my bedside manner, no. "Why do you think I began cutting up dead people?"

"I thought you were just morbidly curious."

"Well, that too."

"And you call me disturbing." He grimaced as they made their way to the front door.


	55. When We Were Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully contemplate their parents growing old.

"The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is taking over the Excelsius Dei Convalescent Home." Scully placed her final report in front of Mulder for his review and signature before turning it into Skinner. "Though, they are already saying that most of the patients are losing the great strides they made under the care of Gung Bittouin." Which was unfortunate, she thought sadly, especially for those like the patient Stan and his family. They had thought he would come home with them and now he was completely non-responsive. It was heartbreaking to see.

"No study is being put into the mushrooms Bittouin was growing there?" Mulder flipped through the type written pages, scanning them quickly.

"Nope," Scully replied, feeling vaguely disappointed that no one was even checking into it. After all, it was well known for years that there were applications of Eastern medicine that worked effectively on conditions that Western medicine hardly understood. But Western medical science was notorious for being prejudice, something she always regretted.

Mulder stopped on the note she made about Michelle Charters's lawsuit. "So they government settled with her, huh?"

"Well, given the circumstances, what else could they do?" Scully shrugged, leaning one hip against Mulder's desk as he read. "It was clear someone or something attacked her, whether it was one of the other employees or, as you theorized, angry spirits let loose into the hospital."

"Something turned on the water in the bathroom, Scully, and there was no one else physically there to do it," Mulder insisted, reaching for a pen on his desk and signing the bottom of the page with his scrawling, spidery "Fox W. Mulder". He passed the report over to her waiting hand. "Eastern medicines work in ways that our medicines do not. Gung Bittouin said that in his home they used those mushrooms to see the spirits of the dead. I did research on Excelsius Dei's history. Before it was ever a convalescent hospital it had been a mental hospital, back in the days when lobotomies were handed out like Pez. The facility turned into a nursing home in the 1970's due to changes in Federal Law. The facility was also drawing law suits from high numbers of fatalities and the owners couldn't keep up with them all." He pulled off his desk a file filled with copies of newspaper articles regarding the changes. "You saw that hospital, Scully, it was like something straight out of a bad, B movie. I think that after all those years of death and pain, that the drugs Gung Bittouin was dispensing had the unintended side effect of focusing those angry energies, allowing the spirit world to enter into this one and to lash out at people like Michelle Charters."

Scully blinked mildly at him. "You seriously believe that?"

"It is a better explanation than being raped by a weak, spindly, 74-year-old Alzheimer's patient who could barely walk long enough to attack Michelle Charters, let alone hold her down physically to do it."

"I know," Scully sighed. She knew that as outlandish as it sounded, Mulder's explanation made more sense than the late Hal Arden attacking her. "At least she is getting some sort of compensation for it."

"Hopefully a rather nice one," Mulder murmured. "I certainly can't blame her for not wanting to work in that place. Three days there and I was given the heebie jeebies."

"I promise, Mulder, I won't put you in a nursing home," Scully laughed, scooting away from the edge of the desk. "You'd probably just break out anyway. You can't even stay in a proper hospital."

"It's not just that," Mulder muttered, glancing at the photograph of his sister sitting on his desk. He studied it pensively for long moments, the familiar face of Samantha smiling up eternally at her older brother. "I'm all my parents have now, you know. Dad's really not getting any younger. Mom's doing okay for now, but she lives by herself. Makes you wonder what to do with your own parents when they get to that point when they need someone around more often."

"Rather morbid thoughts, isn't it," Scully frowned playfully at him. "No bad news from home on your parents health, I hope?"

"No, nothing like that." He shrugged in thoughtful melancholy. "I suppose seeing that place just made me thing is all. For all intense purposes, I am an only child, and whether I like it or not, or they like it or not, I'll be responsible for them someday."

It was a conversation, Scully admitted, that none of her siblings had conducted with one another, let alone with their mother. Their father's death had come as a total shock. They had all assumed that Ahab would live for decades more. Maggie, younger than her husband by two years, was still only in her fifties, not even a grandmother yet. Since Scully's father's unexpected demise, the subject had been broached slightly, over Thanksgiving when all the children were present. But Maggie had deftly turned the conversation around, refusing to even dwell on the thought.

"I guess eventually we'll have that conversation with Mom, but frankly, I can't see her doing anything other than living with one of us. If Bill and Tara don't have her live with them, she'll probably end up with Melissa, myself, or Charlie. I think the last thing any of us would do is have our mother live in a nursing home of any kind."

"We always say that, don't we," Mulder stated, looking thoughtful. "And yet as our parents age, nursing homes are filling to capacity. They say the Baby Boomer generation will perhaps strain our health care industry beyond all bounds, and we do nothing really to address it. Our society is one of dispensability. From birth to death we look for others who will take care of those responsibilities that in ages past would have fallen into our hands. We have preschools and nannies to raise our children, and video games and sports to keep them occupied as teenagers. And when our older generation comes to their golden years, rather than cherish them as sources of a wealth of history, experience, and knowledge, we complain because they can't remember their name, or can't move as fast as they once could and we shuffle them off to be taken care of by someone else, till eventually they die and we collect whatever paltry estate wasn't eaten up by health bills or nursing home fees." He frowned darkly at nothing in particular, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling briefly.

"You have to wonder if Gung was so wrong in what he did at that home. In his society the elderly are cherished, cared for, treated with the utmost respect till the end of their days. It's more than any of those patients got from their so-called kin." His turned his gaze back down to Scully's frankly. "I'm not close with either of my parents. I don't think it's a wound that will ever heal before they die. But I know that as much hurt and anger as there is between us, I can't in good conscience allow them to live like those people I saw there."

Scully had never given much thought to Mulder's relationship with his family, beyond his grief over his sister. He spoke of them so little; he only knew them mostly from Mulder's sideways complaints. He'd met Teena once, briefly, while on a case and she had been polite, but it was hardly time enough for Scully to gauge the woman who had raised young Fox and who still grieved a long lost daughter. And she wasn't even sure she knew Mulder's father's first name. She knew he had worked in the State Department, and was distant at best from his only son. Still, it was unmistakable that despite the gulf that seemed to lay between parents and child, Mulder on one level still did very much care for his parents, he did still loved them. And in his own way he still craved their approval, much as she had from her own father. Perhaps for anyone else in Mulder's position, putting his parents in the care of others would be a blessing, to prevent prying opening old wounds. But she wasn't sure Mulder wanted either of them to go to their deaths that way.

"You have time, Mulder. No one said relationships between adult parents and children were easy. You'll get it figured out before it's too late."

"Maybe," Mulder sighed, shrugging it off and turning to his computer. "Just something to think about is all. I suppose it's a sign we are getting older, too."

"Perhaps…or maybe we are just becoming much more introspective is all." She shrugged, moving towards her table. "I'm going to run this up to Kim upstairs. Do you want anything while I'm gone."

"Geritol," Mulder quipped as she moved out the door. She snorted and rolled her eyes. Mulder would not get old yet, not for a long time.


	56. It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder contemplates the life of a gritty, film noir detective.

Kansas City International Airport was quite possibly one of the best airports in the world, in Scully's opinion. Small enough that you didn't feel overwhelmed by crowds of people pressing against you as they moved from one gait to the next, but large enough that you could still find coffee first thing in the morning. She stood in line patiently at the small coffee stand, her toe tapping idly against the wooden, parquet floor as she studied a picture hanging on the far wall for an art museum with a giant shuttlecock on the front lawn. Who put a shuttlecock on the front lawn of a museum?

"Hey, Scully, remember what I said about doing a grand barbecue tour of cases?" Mulder grinned from the neighboring gift shop, holding up a bottle of dark, red sauce. "Kansas City is famous for it."

"Maybe, after we're done with this case," Scully replied with patient indulgence. "No beef ribs this time, though?"

"I hear they are big on burnt ends here." Mulder set down the bottle and shuffled over to her.

"Burnt ends?" She wrinkled her small nose in disgust. "Who eats those?"

"Big delicacy here. It's the ends of the brisket roast that they've smoked all day."

"Can you think of something else other than your stomach, Mulder?"

"Sure, Sam Chaney." He shrugged as she stepped up to the counter and placed her order with the tired looking cashier.

"What about him?" Scully stifled a yawn. Three hours out from DC and she hadn't managed one wink of sleep on the plane ride, mostly because Mulder had snored loudly beside her. Not that she had thought of waking him up, she'd rather him sleep instead. He usually got so little of it to begin with. Sam Chaney was what brought them out to Kansas City that day; the cold case of the missing, former FBI agent had been strangely solved when a small town police officer had discovered the body in the middle of a frozen, Missouri field decades after he went missing. How she had found him, let alone in a crop bed turned fallow under the freezing temperatures of a Midwestern winter was strange to both she and Mulder.

"Why was it that no one in the Bureau tried to do a more thorough search for Chaney and his partner when they died?" He had been curious about it. Chaney's file wasn't in the X-files, nor was it in the more prosaic, unsolved murder cases. Instead there was a simple report from another agent who had done a cursory investigation into the disappearances and had reported that both were missing and presumed dead."

"I don't know. Perhaps at the time the FBI didn't have the man power or the capability to really run a full scale investigation like that. Remember, it was just at the start of World War II and all of their resources that weren't put into standard investigations were probably directed towards the war effort."

"Still, that would never happen now at days." Mulder grumbled as he idly picked at a bag of cookies, setting it down after the frown from the woman behind the counter deepened. "I take off to Puerto Rico for a few days and they become hysterical."

"I think they became hysterical for an entirely different reason than worry about your personal safety." She snorted as her order came up and she grabbed her cup of coffee, savoring the dark, rich smell. "I couldn't tell you why they didn't look into Chaney more."

"It's sad. He did so much for the field that would become Behavioral Sciences. Hell, before Bill Patterson showed up with his psychology degree, Sam Chaney was doing the very same thing, unrecognized and un-thanked." Scully had never gotten the full story of Mulder's time in VC and the antipathy he felt towards the Behavioral Sciences head, Bill Patterson. Before he died, Reggie Purdue had hinted at it, but had never explained and Mulder had yet to elaborate.

"I think you've become rather a fan of Sam Chaney," she teased him as they made their way outside of the circular terminal to a waiting van for the rental company they always used on cases.

"You flipped through his personnel file, couldn't you see him in one of those 1940's detective stories," Mulder asked, nodding towards the waiting van driver, and holding the sliding door open for Scully as she clambered in, suitcase and coffee in hand. "He's real life Philip Marlow or Sam Spade."

"More like an Hercule Poirot," Scully replied as Mulder climbedd beside her, setting his own suitcase inside before slamming the van door shut. The driver cheerily greeted them as he pulled from the curb.

"Who?" Mulder frowned in confusion at her reference.

"Hercule Poirot, he was a Belgian detective in Agathe Christie's novels." Certainly nowhere near as dark and gritty as Raymond Chandler's work, but, she had rather liked them.

"Those froofy, British stories they are always showing on TV?" He glared at her, obviously affronted.

"They aren't 'froofy'. Chaney was like Poirot, he used logic and reasoning and more than a bit of human understanding to solve his cases."

"And Philip Marlow did not?"

"He seemed to always be threatened by someone." Scully shrugged. Admittedly, she'd only ever seen the old Humphrey Bogart movies. She'd never read the books. "I'm not saying he didn't use his wits to figure it out in the end, but it seem so much less intuitive."

"But Marlow always got the dame. And sometimes she'd try to kill him, too!"

"Is that what you look for in your women, Mulder, a pretty face and a gun to match?"

"Careful, Scully, you're turning me on."

The driver of the van choked softly. Scully shot Mulder a warning look. He wasn't the least bit sorry.

"I always wanted to be a gum shoe detective." Mulder switched the subject before Scully could complain any further. "When I was a kid I used to love those old movies. I wanted to wear a hat and trench coat and walk around in shadowy alleys, looking for clues."

"Guess what, Mulder, you got your wish. Well, except for the hat." She glanced up at the top of his uncovered, dark head. "You have the trench coat and shadowy alleys, though."

"I don't know how very film noir our work is." Mulder sighed sadly. "They never seemed to have psychic killers or alien autopsies in their work."

The driver hit the breaks perhaps a little too hard at the stop sign. They both chose to ignore it. Mulder continued.

"Their cases always seemed to involve crimes of passion or backstabbing. Someone had to be shut up or they stole someone's money, or they had a secret that they were trying to blackmail someone with. And there was always the patsy, the person they got to do the dirty work."

"I'm still trying to figure out how that's different than the cases we solve."

"Did I mention the psychics and aliens," Mulder repeated.

The driver now openly stared at them through the rear view window, his blue eyes wide as he listened to every word. She tried to kick Mulder under the seat, but found her suitcase in the way.

"I think our work has a lot in common with those old, gumshoe detective stories." Scully shook her head, glancing out the window to the rental agency up ahead. "Perhaps it doesn't seem as romantic to us because we are working and living it everyday. When you are up to your ears in paperwork, files, and regulations, we forget all of the more exciting stuff."

"Like liver-eating mutants and sewer dwelling flukemen?" 

Now she knew Mulder did that on purpose to egg on the driver. The poor fellow pulled the van up to a stop in front of the offices, and turned to them, a forced cheery smile on his face. "You folks need any help?" He probably couldn't get the two of them out of his vehicle fast enough.

"Nope!" Mulder nodded genially and opened the door, scooting out of the seat and grabbing both his and Scully's suitcases and setting them on the ground outside. He then offered a hand to her as she tried to slide out with her shorter legs, coffee still carefully in hand.

"At least I have one thing that they always had in the stories," Mulder said as he closed the door, the driver watching the two of them enter the offices with a frightened frown.

"What's that," she grabbed the handle of her suitcase and pulled it out to its full length, rolling the case on its wheels behind her.

"I have a beautiful, intelligent dame to work with." He grinned boyishly, waiting for the slap he knew he was to come for a comment like that.

"Remember the conversation we had on our last case, Mulder, about sexual harassment?"

"I think I blocked that conversation out. The nursing home scared the hell out of me."

"I could remind you if you like."

Mulder smirked as he reached the door first, holding it open for her. "I think I like my knees without high-heel marks, thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, Kansas City is one of the three places I call home (Hampton, Virginia and Los Angeles being the other two), so I admit to being a bit bias about it.


	57. Quit Spooking the Locals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully go digging in someone's back 40.

The cold, wet Missouri sod seeped through Scully's sturdy, leather boots as she glanced sideways at Mulder, Lieutenant Tillman stalking off to his car with Detective BJ Morrow in tow. The tall, angry man murmured something to the hesitant woman, who glanced backwards at Mulder and Scully and stumbled behind him.

"Well that was a brilliant, first impression," she sighed dryly as Mulder scuffed at the soil with a shoe.

"She doesn't look much like a BJ." Mulder shrugged absently as he studied the ground.

Lord, Scully breathed silently, the man seriously had a sense of humor of a schoolboy. "What is a BJ supposed to look like?"

She knew the moment the words fell out of her mouth she had walked right into that trap and let it slam shut on her. Mulder's eyes looked up as a slow, evil smirk formed on his down turned face.

"Oh shut up, Mulder," she growled, her face flushing in the cold breeze that rose off the Missouri River. "Can you please hurry up! I'm freezing and you've managed to spook the locals."

"I didn't spook the locals." Mulder stooped to pick up a clod of cold dirt, held together by what looked like long grasses and corn leaves. "Think this is a corn field in the summer?"

"What else do they grow around here?" Scully felt the wind chapping her cheeks.

"Soybeans," Mulder replied, glancing to the copse of woods right by the field. "I imagine this fields been tilled, what, maybe a hundred times since Chaney's death? Maybe more?"

She shivered and stamped her feet. "I don't know much about farming and agriculture, Mulder. Maybe, yes?" She shrugged in her overcoat and watched him as he crumbled the dirt clod and let it sprinkle between his fingers.

"In fifty years no farmer has turned up the body of Sam Chaney, not even with newer, heavy duty tractor equipment. And yet one dog, out running around on a cold night, comes out to this field, finds the exact spot that Chaney's body was at and digs it up at the very moment a Aubrey police detective happens to be wandering by." He nodded towards the strip of trees and brush, now leafless and dry in the cold of winter. "There aren't a lot of trees in Northwest Missouri. Most are found along creeks or edging people's fields, other people's property. Why would BJ be wandering out in the middle of the night in someone's field?"

"Maybe she knows the people. Aubrey isn't exactly huge. It could be a friend's field."

"Call me strange, but how many people you know who'd hike through brambles and tree branches in this weather, at night, for the fun of it?" He looked up at her skeptically.

"You're strange, Mulder," she replied, feeling ornery with the cold. He rose as her teeth began to chatter. "You are spouting crap about clairvoyance, precognition, premonitions. How much more likely is that than a woman just happening to see a dog digging something up in a field?"

"Funny, but do you see many dog tracks in this field?" Mulder gestured all along the dig site.

"As cold as it is, I'm surprised there are people tracks. I'm surprised they were able to dig at all." She was being irritable and frankly didn't care. "Why are you spooking the locals anyway, Mulder, we should be grateful to them they turned over the case to us at all. Technically it's a local matter, even if it was an FBI agent involved."

"I think BJ isn't telling us the whole story. And I'm not sure why that is." He frowned in the distance where their rental was still parked. Tillman's car was long gone. He turned to her slowly, his breath foggy in the night air. "Let's say we get the hell out of this cold weather, get something to eat."

"You want your barbecue, don't you?" She grumbled as her numb feet tried to keep up with Mulder's longer stride.

"I nice barbecue brisket sandwich and some fries." He smacked his lips. "And there may be some hot chocolate in it for you."

He so knew how to con her into anything. "Promise?"

"I won't keep a woman from her chocolate, Scully. My treat." He smirked as he got to the car and unlocked her door for her. "I'll turn the heater on full blast, how's that sound."

"You're a good man, Mulder," she muttered, shivering as she rushed into the car.

"Only because you put up with me."


	58. Chapter 58

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully displays her powers of intuition.

Tillman looked as if he was about to chew through barbed wire and Scully couldn't blame the man. BJ had nearly fainted dead away on the spot as he had revealed the photograph of his serial killers latest victim, and it had taken Mulder's quick reflexes to keep the poor woman from knocking herself silly on the corner of the table.

"BJ?" Scully murmured in concern, as Mulder carefully helped the other woman to the nearest chair, settling her on it as she gasped, her face a sickly gray.

"I'll go get her some water." Mulder rushed out of the room to the dining area that Scully had seen earlier down the hallway. Tillman crouched down in front of his lover, grabbing one of her wrists and chafing it between two of his hands.

"BJ, you all right?" He was watching her with the detached concern of a boss for his employee. Scully bit her tongue to prevent herself from telling him she knew better.

"Yeah." BJ moaned softly, color coming back into her face slightly as Mulder returned with a cup of water. He handed it to her wordlessly as she nodded gratefully and sipped at it.

"You can't have seen that woman, BJ," Tillman sighed soothingly. "That woman is our latest victim."

"My dreams," BJ began, but then glanced up at Scully and stopped, abruptly.

"Maybe you're right," she replied shakily, nodding at Tillman. "It was just a dream and maybe it's just a coincidence." She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if clearing it.

Mulder didn't look so sure. He glanced from BJ to the photograph left on the counter with the sort of thoughtfulness that told Scully he was suspecting something more. But as he turned speculative eyes to Scully, she met his gaze with a warning one of her own. BJ was obviously exhausted and needed to go home more than anything. And the last thing she needed was for Mulder to come up with some crazy scheme and upset her even further.

"Detective Tillman, would it be okay for BJ to head out of here," Scully asked on the other woman's behalf. BJ's eyes flew open and met Scully's gratefully.

Tillman turned to glance back at Scully, but he didn't seem to think it was a bad idea. He nodded in agreement, rising to give BJ a hand up. She stood slowly and wobbly as Tillman steadied her, still decidedly pale and shaking as she brushed her long hair out of her perspiring face.

"You sure you can get home all right?" For all that Tillman was an adulterer and liar, he obviously did care and was worried for BJ.

"I'm fine," BJ assured him, detaching herself from his supporting arm and finishing the water Mulder brought her. "I think I'll head out now."

"Let me at least make sure you get out to your car all right," Tillman insisted, as BJ slowly made her way out of the room, Tillman behind her as they moved down the hallway. Mulder and Scully watched them go in silence, Mulder looking thoughtful.

"Should I even ask what you are thinking, Mulder?" She was half fearful about what he might suggest.

"Do you think that BJ did see Verna Johnson in her dreams, Scully," Mulder theorized, chewing his bottom lip in distraction.

"BJ's pregnant, Mulder, she's feeling ill and generally horrible. She probably is thinking all sorts of crazy things right now."

"It's just strange, that's all. She finds this body in the middle of nowhere, out of the blue. She's the one who recognizes what it is carved into Chaney's chest, and then she dreams about this woman."

"Mulder," Scully's voice was warning as she returned to the computer, sitting down behind the monitor once more.

"I'm not saying that BJ did the murders, Scully, I'm wondering if BJ has a psychic link to the murders. Perhaps she has a latent ability that has only manifested itself since her pregnancy."

"Mulder, she was out on that highway because she met Tillman at the motel there." Scully hated to be the one pointing out the obvious to him. Hadn't Mulder had a relationship with someone in the office before? He should know this.

"That doesn't explain why she even found the body in the first place, Scully, or why she recognized those markings."

"So the obvious conclusion is that she is psychic?" Scully knew that Mulder tended to create solutions that fit the variables as presented to him, but she wondered what variables there were that would lead him to think of a psychic connection.

"Her dreams, Scully. She's obviously not imagining any of this, these are things that are actually happening."

"She's a detective in the police department, one who is sleeping with the man who is in charge of the investigation. She could have gathered any of that information from anywhere."

Mulder wasn't convinced. But it sure as hell made a lot more sense to her than his theories on psychic phenomena.

"Besides," she glanced around the computer for the bag of cookies she knew she had left there. She frowned as she moved paper and photos and picked up a notebook filled with Mulder's chicken-scratch notes.

"I had some cookies here?" She looked under the desk, thinking she might have knocked them off. "Have you seen them?"

"No," Mulder replied a little too quickly. "Scully, how did you know that BJ was pregnant?"

"Doesn't take much to figure out that when a perfectly healthy woman gets sick on you all of the sudden, she's pregnant, Mulder."

"No, seriously." He eyed her skeptically. "Medical school taught you how to look at people and just know?"

"Yes," she replied evenly, as straight-faced as she could manage. It didn't last. She couldn't suppress her grin at his thoroughly impressed look. "No, Mulder, I just put two and two together, that's all."

"Funny, I was looking at all of the same numbers you were and I didn't get four."

"That's because, despite all your brilliance and you ability to see things that most others can't, you're still not a woman."

He looked seriously affronted by that.

"What does being a woman have to do with it?"

"Woman have an intuition. We know things and we know things about each other. I can't explain it."

"Dr. Scully, the eminent scientist, believes in women's intuition?" Mulder grabbed a nearby chair and settled beside her.

"I didn't say I could explain it, Mulder, I'm just saying that its there. Perhaps its because women are, in general, more attuned to feelings and emotions than men tend to be."

"I'm attuned to feelings and emotions," he protested.

For the most part that was true; Mulder was certainly more in tune than the average man. But for a great deal of time, to be honest, he was oblivious.

"It wasn't that hard to figure out she was sleeping with Tillman," Scully decided to throw him a bone. "You could tell by the way the interacted with one another, how jumpy he got when you asked her why she was out there, how she followed him without question when he demanded she follow him. Then there was the fact she was even out there at all and couldn't give a clear-cut answer. But it happened to be near a motel that was conveniently out of the way."

"You sound like you've done this extra-marital thing before, Scully." Mulder's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Her face flamed as she turned from him suddenly, remembering that while Mulder lacked women's intuition, he certainly had Mulder intuition, and that was nearly as powerful.

"It didn't take much to see that BJ and Tillman had more going on than just a professional relationship," she argued.

Mulder grinned so broadly she thought it would split his face. "There's something that you are hiding, Scully."

"What makes you think that?" She scowled at the computer screen, pulling up the picture of Chaney's chest.

"I don't know, because 'I'm too professional for this conversation' Scully popped out the minute I brought it up." He nudged her chair with a toe. "Is there some dark secret about practically perfect Dana Scully?"

"Shut it, Mulder," she warned, swearing as she knocked over the trashcan under the desk. Heaving an exasperated huff, she leaned over to set it upright again. Lying at the top of it was an empty bag of the cookies she had been eating. The cookies she had purchased at the vending machine down the hallway.

A whole new emotion took over as she plucked the wrapper out of the trashcan and held it up, biting the inside of her mouth as she turned to Mulder with her evidence, eyebrows raised.

"My cookies," she said simply as Mulder looked immediately guilty and attempted to back away. She hooked a toe around one of his calves before he could get very far.

"I was hungry and I didn't think you would mind!" 

"They were my cookies," she grumbled. "No dinner, here all day with you, and all I wanted was some…"

There was a crinkling noise from his pocket as he pulled out another package. "I bought more, as a peace offering."

She stopped her rant, startled, but then cut her eyes suspiciously at him. "Did you really plan on sharing those or did you buy them for yourself and are now only sharing out of guilt?"

"Maybe." Mulder waggled then invitingly in front of her face. "But you won't know will you?"

She snatched the package out of his hand, glaring at him as she did so. "Keep you hands off my cookies, Mulder."

"No promises, Scully. I think you need to keep an eye on your pastries from now on."

He seemed totally unaffected by her evil glare.


	59. Three Things That Come from Nebraska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully learn what back country driving is.

For miles around the rental car they drove up the four lane, Missouri highway was nothing but rolling, brown, frozen fields. The battered, wood sided farm houses broke it up occasionally with satellite dishes in the front yard or a thick thatch of trees around a sluggish, brackish creek feeding into the Missouri River nearby. Scully could think of a few things that would be ten times more interesting than a drive through northwest Missouri up into Nebraska. Watching paint dry came to mind.

"Nebraska, ten miles." Mulder pointed to the green road sign. "Ever been to Nebraska?"

"Would I have a reason to go to Nebraska," Scully ventured, glancing sideways at him.

"Come on, it's not so bad there."

"I heard they have tornadoes in Nebraska."

"You're thinking Kansas, but really they have tornadoes all over the place here."

"I'm already in the Land of Oz, I might as well go all the way," she murmured under her breath.

Mulder smirked but made no further comment.

"So what is in Nebraska, Mulder?"

"College World Series? University of Nebraska football?"

"Besides sports," she shot back.

"They have this really neat sculpture out west called Carhenge. It's just like the structure of stone in England, but made out of wrecked cars. No relation to crop circles, aliens, or paranormal activity that I can tell, but it must make a really great make out spot."

"Why would they make a replica of Stonehenge out of cars?"

"Have you been on the high plains of Western Nebraska? It's enough to drive a man to strange, strange thoughts."

"That explains so much about you, Mulder." She snorted.

"No, seriously, didn't you ever read Children of the Corn?"

"Isn't that a horrible movie I always see on late night cable, with freaky, blonde haired kids?"

"Stories better," he muttered.

"Great, so far we've established that outside of sports, Nebraska is great for tribute artwork to a monument in Europe that many believe is connected to aliens and serial killers who rape and kill women and children who sacrifice people to their demon gods." This was sounding like a more and more thrilling trip by the minute. "Anything else?"

Behind them on the silvery ribbon of dark asphalt a roaring sounded, something akin to a World War II fighter engine, rumbling the flimsy Plexiglas of their rented sedan.

"The hell," Mulder swore, frowning up into the rear view mirror as Scully turned in her seat to see what it was. She squinted in the distance, watching as what looked like an oversized pick up truck came roaring over a rise, its engine sounding like it would propel the large vehicle into the air at any moment.

"They're coming a little fast." As best as she could tell, the truck was doing well past the posted 55 mph speed limit and was going even better than the 65 she knew Mulder was doing. It came tearing up to them after the next hill, close enough she could see the face of a bored looking teenager glaring in irritation at their back end.

"I'm doing faster than the speed limit here," Mulder complained as the truck, which turned out to be the biggest Dodge Ram Scully had ever seen, began blaring its horn angrily at them. Scully could just make out the boy speaking words she was fairly certain he wouldn't utter in front of his mother. Well, he might utter in front of his mother if he was so stupid as to pull a stunt like this.

"Why doesn't the asshole go around?" Mulder frowned, glancing to his left where an equally perplexed sedan kept pace beside him, the single driver in that car shooting furtive, worried glances back at the crazed teenager.

"I guess he's not patient enough to wait for that person to get past you," she murmured, as suddenly the truck behind then swerved to the right, onto the shoulder of the road. It was little more than dirt and a rise of grass, but the giant truck with its powerful wheels plowed over it, kicking up mud and grass as it did so, rounding their vehicle as it tore northward, to the Nebraska line.

"What the fuck?" Mulder cursed loudly, stunned to the point of slowing down as the large tailgate dipped behind another rise and raced through the rolling fields with the sound of an oncoming bomb attack. Scully glanced sideways to the rattled Mulder, who stared, mouth agape at the black speck in the distance.

"I think we can add idiot, teenager drivers to the list," she conjectured softly, blinking as the truck finally disappeared around a bend in the road.

Mulder nodded, frowning as he pressed the gas pedal to move their back up to speed. "I guess then we can agree, Nebraska has three things, aliens, serial killers, and people who drive on the shoulder of the road."

"Yee haw, Mulder. Welcome to Nebraska," Scully chuckled as they crossed over the state border."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a bit of self-service in this chapter. It was an running, inside joke with my college roomie and I, she being from Omaha, that Nebraska was known for aliens, serial killers and people who drove on the side of the road. Being from Missouri, I would tease her about this. Nebraska is a lovely place, really, but I will admit to seeing this sort of stunt pulled on the highway more than once.


	60. Little Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is bothered by cigarette smoke.

The smell of cigarettes would forever remind her of evil, Scully decided, as she felt the need to scratch the scent of it out of her skin. She stared at Cokley as he toked on the butt of one Morley, his yellow-stained fingers oblivious to the oxygen tube that ran up his nose. One spark anywhere near that tank, she thought, and this world would be rid of a very, great evil.

"Do you recognize this man?" Mulder held up a black and white picture in front of Cokley's beady, hard eyes. "His name's Chaney."

"No," Cokley responded lazily, almost tauntingly. It was a lie, and they all knew it, but after fifty years, who was going to prove otherwise.

"He was an FBI agent who was also murdered in Aubrey in 1942." Mulder waited as Cokley drug softly off his smoldering cigarette. Scully shivered as she tried to remember what the glamour of smoking was when she was fourteen? It was the allure of doing something bad, something naughty, she was sure that was a huge impetus. Why was it that the truly malevolent characters in stories always seemed to have one in their hand?

"Can you tell me where you were about 8:35 PM two nights ago, Mr. Cokely?" Mulder asked, pressing his questioning further. Cokley shrugged mildly, hardly perturbed or concerned.

"Sitting right where I am now."

"Do you have a witness to testify to that?" Mulder asked.

Cokley's eyes flared angrily, his twisted face screwing up in contempt at Mulder. "Are you blind?" He waved towards the tank by his chair, a heavy canister that one could only really move by the wheels attached to its bottom. "I can't leave the house without this damn thing! I sit right here in front of that TV twenty-four hours a day. And on the night you're talking about, I was sitting here watching a show about a lost dog. Then after that it was a show about…."

"I don't think that's necessary." Scully stopped him before he could go on smugly declaiming all of the television line up he had been watching. It was clear, as much as she hated to admit it, that Cokley had very little to do with the murders themselves, at least not directly. Right now Scully simply wanted to get out of the ramshackle farmhouse, to run to a shower and scrub her skin till it was raw to get the taint of smoke and evil out of her.

Cokley turned his small, hard eyes to her, and smiled slowly, a somewhat feral look. He nodded as if in appreciation. "Good," he murmured, sucking on the end of his filter. "Now, are you about finished with me, little sister?"

"For now," she replied in a voice as bleak as the winter wind outside, her expression just as cold. Cokley turned from her, coughing and puffing, as Scully turned on her heels and stalked out of the door, Mulder close behind.

"I guess your hunch didn't play out," she murmured to Mulder when they stepped out into the cold wind and moved towards their car. It wasn't just the temperature that left her feeling frozen and hollow inside.

"Actually it did clear up some of the facts of the case for me," Mulder replied, getting into the car on his side as Scully got in on her side. He started it and turned the heater on full blast. "It tells me that Cokely isn't the one committing these murders, no matter what they look like."

"It doesn't mean he couldn't be directing someone else to do it." Scully eyed the dark, brooding house, with its sagging roof and faded, peeling paint. "Obviously Cokely has some contact with the outside world, someone to bring his oxygen tank, his food, his cigarettes."

"It could be, but I don't think so." Mulder was already beginning to puzzle out and profile this case, despite the fact that technically it was still in the jurisdiction of the Aubrey Police Department. "What benefit would he receive from someone else performing the crimes that he himself is now denied thanks to his failing health? No, I don't think Cokely has anything to do with these new murders."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." Scully frowned as they pulled away from the failing house. "Sometimes evil just begets evil."

"How very biblical of you, Scully."

"You don't believe that there is true evil in this world?" She would have thought that Mulder, with his history in Violent Crimes, would be the first one to believe that.

"I believe that evil things are done, evil acts. But evil as an entity that propagates….no." Of course, Mulder the atheist wouldn't look at it in the same terms Scully did. But she remembered all to well Donnie Pfaster. And as irrational as it was, darkness and evil sometimes did have a nearly palatable presence.

"Even still, Mulder, if you grant that evil things are done in this world, why wouldn't Cokely be involved with these new murders?"

"He doesn't even know about the new ones," Mulder replied simply to Scully's puzzlement. At her confused silence, he elaborated. "I didn't mention one word about the new murders. And the Aubrey police have kept a tight lid on the case. With as small an area as this, even if the murders did happen in Missouri, it would be all over the local news, but they have kept it silent. When I brought up his where abouts two nights ago, he wasn't in the least bit concerned. He was angry we would ask because of his condition, not because of his guilt. He was confident he had nothing to do with anything. And Sam Chaney's murder was so long ago, he knew we had nothing on him on that."

She wasn't convinced. "You don't know that he isn't involved. Whoever it is performing those murders has intimate details that only Cokely would possibly know."

"I don't know," he began as a loud ringing sounded from his coat pocket. Surprised, they both glanced down at the sound as Mulder reached for his pocket, pulling out his cell phone.

"Mulder," he answered, listening quietly to the other end of the phone. He frowned in the waning light outside, and then turned to glance at Scully. "We'll be there as soon as we can." He snapped off his phone, and tossed it in the middle console between the seats, gunning the engine as he raced off down the rapidly, darkening highway from southern most Nebraska back into Missouri. "That was Tillman. He said that BJ called hysterical, something about 'little sister' and knowing where the other one was. He hasn't found her yet, but says her bedroom is covered in blood."

"'Little sister'? That's what she said?" Scully felt her mouth go dry. "You realize that's what Cokely called me when we left, right?"

Mulder's frown deepened as he raced the sedan down the highway.


	61. Giving That Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully discuss the nature of adoption.

"You want to give the adoption agency a call," Scully glanced at the faded address in Mrs. Thibodaux's neat, slanted handwriting.

"In the morning." Mulder nodded as he drove back the road from Nebraska to Missouri again, back to their hotel. "I wonder if Mrs. Thibodaux's child even had any inkling of how it came into the world?"

"Few adopted children ever do." She sighed sadly. "It's so strange. Remember Roland Fuller from Seattle?"

"Yes, the twin to the aeronautics professor." It had been one of their last cases before the X-files had been closed down six months before.

"I was so upset with his birth parents for doing what they did," Scully recalled, remembering how outraged she had been that any family would give up a child just because of their imperfections. "I thought at the time that it was a crime to give up on a child like that."

"And now," Mulder asked curiously.

"I can't blame Mrs. Thibodaux. The child of an attack and rape that disfigured her nearly killed her. Having that image of someone so evil whenever you look at a precious, innocent life, born out of perhaps one of the move vicious and violent of trespasses."

Mulder was silent beside her as she continued. "I don't know if things like that can be passed on to children, that evil. But I know that anger and resentment can be passed on. And perhaps it was best for the child to be sent somewhere where it would never have to deal with the backlash of who it's biological father was, with parents who could love him or her."

"I think the situation is vastly different from Roland Fuller's, don't you," Mulder finally asked. "But I think you're right. I don't think there is a day in Mrs. Thibodaux's life she doesn't wonder about that child. But she can't even think of it without associating it with the worst nightmare that ever occurred to her."

Scully tried to imagine if she had been in that woman's place, having just gone through what Mrs. Thibodaux had been through, to find out you were then expecting a child as a product of that attack. A part of her wanted to be noble, to think that she would keep the child despite everything and love it. But another wondered if she would be able to have that sort of moral fiber, that ability to set aside the horror associated with bringing such a child into the world. What if it looked like the father? Everyday having a physical reminder of the pain and shame of what had happened, knowing that this child had as little to do with it as you did.

"Why is it, do you think Mulder, that there is such evil in this world?" She sighed philosophically as she stared out towards the rolling hills of the fertile prairie land. "Why is it that men like Donnie Pfaster and Harry Cokely are allowed to exist and commit the harm that they do?" Even as a child in her Sunday School at church, she had asked her teachers that. She had always gotten the answer that such men were there to test our faith, to make us stronger. But it never satisfactorily answered the question of why it was they existed in the first place.

"Psychological I would contest that the concept of 'evil' is really just a way to explain those human beings who, for one reason or another find it difficult to live according to the accepted rules of good conduct for the societies they are born into. This inability shocks and horrifies the society, and disenfranchises the outsider."

"You say I sound clinical," she teased lightly, earning an acknowledging smile.

"I don't know if I believe in true evil or not, Scully. I've seen some truly horrific things in my life. Things that not all of the psychology books or Oxford degrees in the world could explain away, and each time as an investigator you find yourself asking yourself is this really just a dark, sad aspect of human nature that we've repressed by our rules and our regulations? Is it just a disease, an illness born out of some chemical imbalance that we throw a pill at and make better? Is it a moral flaw that we need to punish and hope we can smooth out? And the truth is, I couldn't tell you the answer to any of those things. There are days when you simply want to quantify things as just, plain evil, and leave it at that."

"So you don't believe in true good and true evil?" Scully was intrigued. It never occurred to her that Mulder wouldn't believe in something that was so fundamental to her own thought system. And yet, when she thought about Mulder, his disinclination to believe in a God or organized religion and all of the horrific things he had seen in his life, down to his own sister's abduction, it made a strange sort of sense.

"I believe that everyone has a choice to be either," Mulder replied. "We don't all always do good things, nor do we all always do evil things. But we can chose to do what is compassionate over what is hard hearted, to do what is right over what is wrong. For some of us that choice is easy, for others, like Cokely and Pfaster, that is a choice they have a great deal of difficulty understanding and distinguishing."

She sighed thoughtfully in the seat beside him. "In a way you almost have to feel for the both of them, no matter how horrific they were. Both Donnie Pfaster and Harry Cokley were products of homes where their sisters received the love and attention they themselves did not and because of that they learned to hate and objectify women in the worst sort of way."

"It's true," Mulder acknowledged. "But there are millions of children who deal with far worst in their lives who don't turn to violence as a way of acting out. And somehow," he glanced sideways at her as he spoke. "I can't see your grace going so far as to be understanding of men who would prey on innocents to feed the hurt and rejection they felt as a child."

"No," she acknowledged. As sad as both of their stories were, she found it hard to draw up eve one iota of sympathy for either of them.


	62. The Sum of our Parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder gets a close shave.

Another quarter of an inch and a bit more pressure and Mulder would be dead right now.

"Why is it you insist on getting wounded near major arteries," Scully queried as she daubed at the fine, razor line across Mulder's throat with alcohol and gauze. Mulder hissed and flinched away from her, pushing back her ministering hand.

"Don't be a baby!" She grabbed his shoulder and held him firmly in place, despite his efforts to wiggle out of it. Mulder might be an athletic sort of guy, but she dug her nails into his jacket to keep him still.

"Ow," he protested turning down to glare at her long, manicured fingers. "What, did you get claws put in this time?"

"Shut it and hold still!" She wiped away the blood that streamed down his neck and stained the collar of his dress shirt. "You'll need a new one of these?"

He shrugged, seemingly indifferent to the matter. It was Mulder, she supposed, he was lucky to have clothes that matched with the way his eyes worked. He couldn't tell the difference between the various shades of red and green. Still, a bloodstain on his shirt might just stand out to him just a bit. He hated looking less than neat.

"I'm almost done," she whispered as she leaned in close in the darkness outside of Harry Cokley's ramshackle, Nebraska home. Despite the light of the paramedic's trucks and the blaring, flashing red and blues from the Nebraska State Patrol, she had a hard time seeing the long, thin wound across Mulder's neck, put there by BJ Morrow. In the distance along the quiet, Nebraska farmland Scully could still hear BJ sobbing hysterically in the back of one of the patrol cars as Tillman discussed details with the county sheriff and state patrol about jurisdiction for the prisoner.

"There you go." She taped a long, thin strip of gaze and bandage over his still bleeding wound. It made Mulder look ridiculously as if he had nearly had his head taken off and he nearly had. Her stomach still squirmed at the sight of her partner, BJ's straight razor pressed against his throat, as Scully leveled her weapon at the woman.

"How is BJ," Mulder murmured, as if reading her thoughts while she began to back up the mess from her ministrations.

"She's going to need a sedative soon, but they are too busy arguing over where to take her." Scully snorted dismissively as Mulder reached up briefly to fiddle with his bandage. She swatted his hand away.

"And Cokley?" He rose, straightening from the back of the paramedic's truck, mostly to get away from her she suspected. She'd hovered over him from the moment BJ had stood down and it was beginning to annoy him.

"He's dead." She nodded to the second truck sitting on the grass, its lights dim as the drivers prepared to leave with the body. "He died of a heart attack brought on by BJ. Not surprising given the frail state of his health." She watched the ambulance pull away dispassionately. "In a way I guess it's sort of a fitting way for him to go, in the same manner he took so many others."

Mulder was silent as he watched the taillights pull into the distance. "I'm guessing that's why they are arguing over what to do with BJ." He shot a look towards the knot of patrolmen, sheriff's deputies and Tillman by Cokley's house, with no resolution in sight. In the car behind them, BJ was slumped, her head leaning against the seat in front of her, her long hair straggling down to cover her face.

"You think she had any idea," Mulder asked softly. It was clear he, like Scully, felt for the woman.

"I don't think so," Scully replied. "Her father's birth records were sealed and I don't think it ever occurred to him to look into the matter. Even if he did, there's no telling that the Thibodaux's put his name on the birth certificate. Its possible BJ didn't even know her father was adopted."

They stood in silence next to the paramedic's truck, watching BJ quietly.

"You have to wonder how much of her actions was really BJ or something else." Mulder's psychological bent was intrigued by BJ's case, Scully could tell. Already he was trying to work out the fascinating puzzle that would send an upright, respectable, small town detective on a dangerous murder spree. "She didn't have the same childhood her grandfather had. She was perfectly normal, had a great, promising career. And then suddenly this." He waved a hand towards Cokley's crumbling home.

It was hard for Scully to accept as well. She had wrestled with the idea of just what had pushed BJ over the edge as she worked on Mulder. "Perhaps it was the pregnancy, the hormonal changes. She said that was when the nightmares started. Maybe something in her mind shifted, some genetic chemical imbalance she didn't display ever until the baby changed everything."

"You think evil breeds then?" Mulder raised an eyebrow at her. She found herself meeting it with a small smile. Perhaps her science tended to side with Mulder's reason every so often.

"I think that whatever drove Cokley to his evil deeds, whatever imbalance they diagnosed him with, it is quite possible BJ inherited it as well and it was triggered by the baby, yes." The scientific side of her found this explanation much more appealing than the religious side of her. "Perhaps, in this case, evil did breed."

"Certainly puts to question then Cokley's whole defense fifty years ago, doesn't it? That idea of nature versus nurture, how much of why a person does the things they do is really because of conditioning and environment as opposed to genetics and DNA. BJ, born without the knowledge of who her grandfather was, unknowingly began displaying the very behaviors that he did fifty years ago, without any of the environmental factors that Cokely claimed caused it."

"It is food for thought," Scully agreed as she mulled it over in her own mind. "But then BJ grew up around this area, her father was a cop. He would have heard the stories of his own, unknown grandfather's deeds. He might have shared those stories at home or she might have heard them from other cops growing up. It's possible that when her imbalance was triggered, her mind just correlated those stories she was familiar with and unwittingly she began re-enacting her own grandfathers crimes because they were ones she knew."

"Certainly muddles everything, doesn't it," Mulder murmured softly. They had no clear explanations as to why BJ did what she did and he sounded as if he didn't precisely expect to find any either.

"You have any traits you inherited from your parents>" he cocked his head sideways at her inquisitively.

"Traits?" She blinked, then squinted her eyes in though, trying to pinpoint something she could say was specifically like her mother or her father. "I think the gift for science was all Dad. He majored in engineering at Annapolis. He had a mind that lent itself towards logic and reason. Mom tends to be more of the open-minded one, much more like Melissa and Charlie are." She shrugged, trying to think of particular ticks or behaviors she displayed that were like anyone else in her family. "Both my parents were neat freaks, I guess. Dad was whom I got the addiction from coffee from though." She grinned at the memory of Ahab, filling her juice cups filled with coffee, milk, and sugar when she was hardly more than a toddler. "Mom swears that's why I was the short one in the family, because he kept sneaking it to me when she wasn't looking." She glanced over at Mulder who smiled slightly at her light-hearted memory. "You?"

"A lot of mine are Dad's," he admitted. "The inability to pick up my own socks, my addiction to sports, the sunflower seeds." He patted his suit pocket where she could hear a package rattling inside. "All things I gained from my father. I was as close to him as a child as you were to your father." His painful sadness at those words was just covered by an indifferent stoicism. Only just - Scully could see beyond that. She didn't have to ask what happened to change that. She knew.

"I guess those are the things we cling to when our lives get difficult, those familiar things we gained from our parents. In a way it's how they continue on, even after they die and leave us."

"Perhaps." Scully nodded, as finally, Tillman seemed to get straight just what to do with BJ. He moved towards the car as he flagged over the set of paramedics from the truck they both stood near. Gently, he opened the door and helped the exhausted, defeated BJ out of the back seat.

"Poor BJ. I don't think this is a legacy she ever wanted to carry herself." Scully watched the woman crumple on the gurney as the paramedics strapped her down, speaking softly to her.

"And now she has a child of her own," Mulder pointed out. "Perhaps we better warn Tillman to keep her on suicide watch, shall we?"

Scully nodded in agreement as they watched BJ being wheeled towards the ambulance somberly


	63. Black Sabbath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is unhappily woken up.

Scully was just getting to that point at waking when her mind was slowly coming alive, but her body was still fighting for every inch of sleep. It had been a long plane flight from Kansas City and she had done little more after getting home than to take off her clothes, put on her pajamas, and tumble straight into bed. Even after her long nights rest, she was still comfortably dozing, luxuriating in the feel of sleeping in her own bed after several nights in a damp, cold hotel room, chasing murderous serial killers and their off spring. She enjoyed the feeling of just laying there, being, existing in a muzzy, sleep state that required no thought or effort on her part.

She had just turned to find a cooler spot under her warm blankets and was plumping up her favorite pillow under her head, when her phone rang shrilly in the semi-darkness. She blinked at it mildly and considered whether or not she should bother picking it up. Scully knew who it was calling her at this ridiculous time of the morning and she really had no desire to listen to Mulder wax poetic about his barbecue sandwich he had grabbed and brought back with him from Kansas City, nor to hear any further theories on what had driven BJ Morrow to murder those women. She wanted her sleep and if she ignored his phone call he would eventually just assume she was still in bed and would bother her when she stepped into the office.

Or, that was the idea Scully had at least. Mulder apparently hadn't learned how to read her thoughts from a distance yet. A minute later, as her eyes fluttered closed, her phone began to ring again…loudly. She squeezed her eyes shut, hard, willing the shrill, skull-pounding reverberation to go away, to leave her alone for the time being. Her phone was silent for a long, still moment. She felt her shoulders relax under her blankets as she breathed out a long, sigh of pleased relief, when without warning the sound began again, if possible shriller and more annoying than before. With a lunge and a growl that was born out of her deep, tired frustration she reached for the offending piece of electronics and pulled the receiver up, slamming it hard against her ear.

"Mulder, I swear to God, if this is you…."

"Did I wake you, Scully?" She knew he said that just to piss her off.

"No, Mulder, I'm like you, I don't sleep. I simply live off caffeine and hate to keep me going."

"So I caught you at a good time," Mulder replied cheerfully. Damn him, she muttered to herself, damn him to hell. "I just got a call from Milford Grove, New Hampshire. The sheriff there has a case he wants the FBI to look at."

"A case?" She glanced at her bedside clock. "At 5:30 in the morning?"

"Yeah, apparently a local hunter was out and about at the crack of dawn for some fine shooting. He stumbled upon a dead teenager and it was enough to call it a day and head towards the sheriff's station."

"A hunter?" She frowned up at the ceiling as she flopped back into her soft, fluffy pillows. "What sort of hunter goes out in the winter? Isn't everything hibernating?"

"I don't think Fish and Game is particularly concerned about what a man was doing in the woods hunting when there's a dead teenager involved."

"Right." She yawned and rubbed at her eyes. "So why is it the sheriff is calling the FBI again?"

"He says the kid died because of Satan."

"Satan?" Well that explained why it was Mulder got the case. Scully couldn't help the scoff of disbelief she emanated as she wondered if she should just tell Mulder to go to hell, hang up the phone, roll over and go to sleep. At this point it sounded like a good idea. "You aren't seriously considering this, Mulder, I mean….Satan?"

"Come on, it's a small, New England town! I'm sure they still have witch trials up there."

"Mulder, aren't you from New England?"

"The more enlightened part. Listen, Scully, I booked us tickets for Dulles to Manchester. Think you can get out there in an hour?"

"Dulles? Mulder, I'm in bed. I don't want to fly anywhere at….it's early."

"It's a case, Scully! They requested our help."

"Mulder, these are the type of people who think Black Sabbath is devil's music."

"That dates you, Scully. They probably think anything on the radio is devils music. Besides, I told the Sheriff we would be out there first thing in the morning."

She didn't want to do this. She had just gotten back from Missouri, she didn't want to have to see an inside of a plane again for days, weeks if she could get away with it.

"Mulder," she whined, knowing she was losing even as she pushed off the blankets and sat up, fumbling for her slippers.

"I promise, I'll let you have a extra-long weekend out of it."

"You lie. Some other kid will be found in a forest somewhere, with antlers growing out of his head, and you'll drag me out of a nice, warm bed to prod it and explain to you that they were glued to some drunken, farm kid by his equally intoxicated friends as a prank."

"You so take the romance out of everything, Scully."

"I'll see you at Dulles. Bring coffee!" She slammed down the phone. Damn it all to hell, she muttered, reaching in her closet for a clean set of clothes and wondering if she would at least have time for a shower. She was going to start turning off her phone at night so he couldn't call her. But then he'd only show up at her door because he would worry. And then he'd let himself in if she didn't answer. The idea of waking up with Mulder looming over her, prodding her awake to go with him to poke at some other strange case of a kid in a woods somewhere made her want to start sleeping with her gun.

"He better bring me my coffee," she grumbled as she stumbled into the shower.


	64. Hide Your Megadeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is disgruntled standing out in the rain.

The rain had already soaked down the back of her coat, despite her best efforts to hide beneath the umbrella. It was that cold, icy, February rain that you got in mild winters, not cold enough to produce mountains of snow, but just cold enough to be damn irritating. It pelted over the tarp she eased back over the body and on top of the umbrella she held over her head. Jerry Stevens was dead all right, as a door nail. No eyes, no heart and looking for all the world like the stereotypical, cult ritual killing. That's what bugged the hell out of her. It looked like someone's idealized concept of a ritual killing.

"A hunter found him early this morning." Sheriff Oakes hovered over her shoulder with all the completely incessant, inane information that she already knew. She at least humored the rattled sheriff with a smile. He leaned in to her conspiratorially, watching his deputies as he murmured in a stage whisper loud enough to carry to Boston. "They say this area's used for witches' ceremonies."

"They?" Mulder's sarcasm bled through the word, dripping from it. Scully shot him a warning glance, but the sheriff was clearly oblivious.

"Well... everybody... everybody who lives around here knows about the things that go on in this town. They say there are people who control things."

"Any evidence to substantiate those rumors, Sheriff Oakes?" Scully tried to ask politely, trying to offset Mulder's growing agitation beside her.

"Well, Agent Scully," he shrugged, waving at the body under the tarp matter-of-factly. "Look at the body! The eyes and heart have been cut out." He sounded as if should be proof enough for the two of them that the hand of Satan was at work. For the briefest of moments, Scully wondered if Mulder was going to kick the sheriff,or step behind a tree and shoot himself. He must have decided the situation was far too ridiculous for him to even bother with, because he settled on a slightly pained grimace instead.

"Many homicides include victim desecration," Scully offered patiently, hoping to get Mulder's affirmation as a criminal profiler. She knew that in a small town like this, such a murder was a shocking thing, practically unheard of, and they probably didn't know that this was a common sight among violent murders, especially serial killers.

The sheriff, however, looked as if the word serial killer brought up images of Cheerios. He leaned in again, a troubled look on his honest face. He pointed to Jerry Steven's corpse once again. "I know he and his friends listened to devil music!"

Mulder watched the man with all serious gravity. "'The Night Chicago died'?"

Scully would have kicked him, except she had a feeling this clearly was all too much for her poor partner. Without a beat he turned and walked away towards a stump further in on the crime scene, covered with candles and other detritus of a ritual. Scully would have apologized for him, but frankly, she was too stunned by what the sheriff had even said.

The sheriff was adamant though. "You know what I mean. Heavy metal bands that influence kids." He began to follow Mulder's long strides and Scully fell in beside the man.

"Were Jerry Stevens or his friends ever witnessed participating in witchcraft?" Mulder called out as he studied the worn, ancient stump, picking briefly at one of the melted candles.

"No," the sheriff admitted slowly.

"More rumors?" Scully was beginning to think that they had been called up to New Hampshire on nothing more or less than town gossip from little, old church ladies who mistrusted the rock and roll their grandkids played too loud from their stereos.

"The stump here is supposed to be the ceremonial altar." The sheriff pointed out with the air of someone who has heard and believed this story since childhood and never once questioned it. "What do you think?" He blinked at Mulder sincerely, hoping that the FBI agent could back up the claims that the sheriff seemed to buy into whole-heartedly.

Mulder blinked mildly at the man. "I think with a few turquoise chips, a picture of John Wayne, and three cans of shellac it'd make a pretty nice coffee table."

Scully choked and then covered her mouth, pretending to cough. She cleared her throat and shot him a dirty look. He ignored it. Deciding to leave the sheriff to his own fate with a bored and irritated Mulder, she decided to investigate the bag that Jerry Stevens had left behind. There was nothing of terrible interest in the rustling plastic beyond two, now warm six packs of cheap bear, one pack missing several cans. The woods would be a nice spot for underage drinking, she reasoned, nice and secluded. Especially if you were out with friends, particularly if some of those friends were of the female persuasion.

"Well you see all the wax? Someone's been lighting candles in there," the sheriff insisted.

Scully straightened, adjusting the umbrella over her head. A few feet from where she crouched a paper caught her eye. Frowning, she reached for it, picking it up to study it.

"Any idea who Jerry Stevens was with out here?" The paper looked as if it had been torn from a book and the title at the top was ripped in half, ending with the words "…in America".

"Oh?" The sheriff sounded confused by her question, as if it hadn't occurred to him that Jerry Stevens might have come out in the woods with someone else. This was despite the fact that he had quite clearly been murdered. "We assumed he was alone."

Nice detective work on the part of the sheriff, Scully mused irritably. She shot a look to Mulder who shrugged in the sort of apologetic, "no cure for stupid" sort of way. "Well, most people don't set out to drink two six-packs by themselves." 

Mulder looked thoughtful for a moment. He might set out to drink two six-packs in the woods by himself. But then Mulder had a guilt complex and a self-destructive streak large enough to encompass all of New Hampshire. He nodded in agreement with her after a moment's consideration.

"I also found this." she held up the paper she found on the ground. "It has some purple ink on the edge, a library identification stamp. And the end of the title says 'in America'. I'm surprised your people overlooked it."

Mulder's head reared up as he shot her a surprised, amused "was Scully just snarky with the locals" look. He looked endlessly pleased. He so owed her for getting her out of bed early for this.

The sheriff blushed bright crimson and looked horrified as she passed the paper over to him. "I'm sorry. I've got to apologize here. You're…you're right," he admitted ashamedly, as he glanced towards his deputies, all of whom were roaming around in a manner Scully now realized had nothing to do with them finding anything substantive, but merely a way for them to look busy. "I admit we're a little…rattled here." He hesitated as he shrugged broad shoulders under his brown uniform jacket. "That's why I called the FBI. This may involve a conspiracy."

Mulder snorted so softly, Scully was positive she was the only one to hear it, but she couldn't ignore his eyes rolling heavenward. It took a lot to make Fox Mulder, the man of conspiracies and the paranormal, to think you were a nut job.

"See, I grew up around here. Ever since I was a kid I heard stories." The sheriff nodded knowingly. "This is a weird area. It has a strange air that I could chalk up to imagination - till today."

It's New England, Scully reminded herself with a deep breath. This place used to burn witches once. She patiently handed the sheriff the paper. He took it, nodding reassuringly. "I'll have my staff start checking libraries for you, Agent Scully." He tipped his hat as he nervous stumbled away, towards his waiting deputies who looked only too happy to finally have something to do to get them out of the area.

No sooner was the man gone than Mulder sidled up to her, leaning in close to her ear. "Better hide your Megadeth albums."

He knew she had Megadeth, too. She snorted, glancing up at his smirking face. "Theories like that are why I can't take him seriously.

Now that the sheriff was gone, Mulder seemed to loosen his sarcasm considerably. He eyed the stump again thoughtfully. "The homicide did have a ceremonial presentation, the manner in which the body was displayed..."

"Mulder," Scully frowned at him, as suddenly he seemed to back track on her. "I got the impression you didn't believe him either."

"I didn't want to incite his already clearly aggravated imagination," he replied. "But there is a weird feel to this place, maybe there is some truth to those rumors"

Clearly someone had gotten excited, she thought sourly, and it wasn't just the sheriff. "I think he incited your imagination." Not that it took much with Mulder when he got it into his head. "I think this case is nothing more than a murderer taking advantage of local folklore. I mean there's nothing odd about…"

From somewhere above her, something fell hard on the umbrella over her head. Gasping, she looked up, as suddenly several strange objects were pelting her, all falling from the sky above and landing heavily on the umbrella, surrounding her feet. On the ground around her, hundreds of frogs, perfectly alive, leaped in the leaves and brush, clearly as startled as Scully as she turned to look at Mulder's astonished face. He glanced up to the sky in confusion, then down at her.

"So," he asked speculatively, eyebrows rose. "Lunch?"

She couldn't help but stare at him, her mouth agape, wonder if he had just lost his mind. "Mulder, toads just fell from the sky!"

He nodded gravely, as if things like this happened every day. "I guess their parachutes didn't open."

He really was in asshole mood today. He smirked at her.

"You were saying something about this place not feeling 'odd'?" He asked triumphant, walking away as she stared at him, wondering how best to pick through the mass of frogs on the ground. She stepped gingerly around them, hoping to God she didn't accidentally step on one.

"Mulder, toads just don't fall from the sky," she shouted to his quickly disappearing figure as she stumbled over roots, muck, and the occasional slippery toad. She grimaced squeamishly as she maneuvered to a relatively clear spot of ground, and managed to gain on him. "At least they don't do those type of things outside of the Bible."

"I was thinking the same thing myself." He turned towards her and walking backwards towards the car.

"This isn't biblical, Mulder!"

He shrugged mildly, glancing back at the chaos among the sheriff's deputies as they tried to avoid the frogs and still maneuver Jerry Steven's body up the embankment towards the road and waiting ambulance. "I've yet to hear of a forecast that called for 'partly cloudy with a chance of amphibians' before."

"No!" She climbed up the hill beside him to their waiting car. "But there are cases of strange, meteorological events uprooting all sorts of things. Cows that are flung across county lines, people's belongings strewn across three states.'

"Those occur with tornadoes, Scully, not a rainstorm."

"Depends on the rainstorm," she insisted, glancing up at the steadily beating rain. "You really don't think that this has anything to do with this case?"

That was a stupid question, she realized. Mulder shot her a mysterious smile and moved around the car to the driver's side.

"Mulder, you don't believe in God! How can you believe in Satan?"

"World's full of all sorts of strange, spiritual beliefs. They can't all be wrong. Besides, you're the one who buys into the embodiment of evil."

"Yes, in theory, but not as a drunken teenager, out in the woods, trying to get laid."

"You think that one of Jerry Steven's friends had enough chutzpah to actually cut out his friends eyes and heart like that?"

"No, but I do think Jerry Stevens might have run into someone who might believe these stories every bit as the sheriff does. And maybe his friends know something about it."

Mulder grinned slowly and appreciatively. "That's my sort of thinking, Scully." He started the car as she closed up her umbrella and pulled it in with her, slamming the door.

"What do you want for lunch anyway," Mulder asked as he pulled away from the crime scene.

"If you suggest frogs, Mulder, I swear to God I will vomit on you."

"Burgers it is."


	65. Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N Roll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully muse on teenage life.

Scully had never been a huge fan of The Twilight Zone as a child. The theme music had always disturbed her on some deeply fundamental level and the stories had always been unnerving. Still, she realized as Mulder pulled her out of the Milford Grove High School office and into the hallway, she remembered enough of the episodes to know what each show made her feel like. And she was having that sort of feeling right now.

"Mulder, this is mass hysteria," she hissed as he bent over one of the drinking fountains outside. The school administration was now talking about Satanic cults and evil influences. Hell, she thought feverishly, it sounded like she was in the middle of Bible-belt Georgia, not in stoic, practical New England. "And our presence here on a 'routine' homicide only gives validity to their fears of occult murder."

This wasn't an X-file, she fumed it was a witch-hunt. Surely Mulder must realize that one by now. But instead of agreeing with her, he leaned his tall frame over the water fountain, frowning down at it, muttering to himself about the water.

"What's wrong with it?" Perhaps there was something in it making everyone insane.

"It's going down the drain counter-clockwise! Coriolis forces in the Northern Hemisphere dictates that it should go down clockwise."

"That isn't possible." Basic laws of physics told everyone that. And as she had at one point in time been a physics major, she at least remembered that from her undergraduate degree.

"Something's here. Something is making these things possible." Mulder insisted as he pulled away. She stared at the water in the fountain.

"Sure there are things that could make it possible, they are just highly unlikely. Perhaps there is an interference in the magnetic field here."

"Do you believe that there's an interference in the magnetic field in Milford Grove?" Mulder challenged, calling her bluff. She pursed her lips together and crossed her arms, glaring at him as she leaned against the wall by the water fountain.

"Mulder it makes much more sense than demons and witchcraft. Really, you are simply feeding this town's mass paranoia."

"You heard the sheriff discuss the stories." Mulder met her irritation without flinching. "You know that he's heard these very same tales of strange things happening for decades."

"And that's just it. Everyone's heard these stories. This is New England, Mulder; witch trials and headless horsemen. They have stories that go back to the Puritans about the evil goings on around here."

"Headless horseman was in New York," he corrected with a small smile.

"Whatever, the point is that it's part of the culture here. I'm sure they've thought all sorts of strange things for the last four centuries, it doesn't make it any more true." She slumped against the wall. "Face it, Mulder, Jerry Stevens died because he and his buddy Dave wanted to go out in the woods and get laid, nothing more, nothing less. And they probably ran into some nut job who bought into all these stories they've told for generations."

"That's a hell of a price to pay for some nookie in high school," Mulder acknowledged pithily, glancing back down the hallway to the principle's office. "Whatever happened to getting the girl in the backseat of your car with a little mood music, out on some lonely back road somewhere?"

"Speaking from personal experience, Mulder?" Scully felt her mood lighten as she teased him, her brain trying to wrap itself around the idea of what a young Fox Mulder would have been like. Was he the moody, obsessive, self-absorbed man he was now or would he have been a bit more carefree, a young boy trying to get away from a family tragedy by throwing himself into all the excesses of a teenage life.

"Oh, well, I will admit to having had a few young ladies in the backseat of Mom's station wagon a time or two."

Scully feigned shock. "A few young ladies? Fox Mulder does your mother know what you did in her car?"

"No, she'd have never let me borrow it again. Course she didn't know about the beer or pot either, but…"

"Mulder," Scully gasped, reaching across to slap his elbow, glancing up and down the hallways and hoping to God there were no teenagers standing about hearing a federal agent discuss underage drinking and illicit use of narcotics.

"What? You didn't do a little roach toking as a teenager?" His eyes glittered with laughter.

"You work for the FBI, Mulder, those are things we don't discuss," she warned him, despite the betraying twitch of her mouth. "Besides, I was a good Catholic girl, I was home every night, studying."

"Liar." Mulder was unconvinced. "I bet Melissa will confess to all of your sins if I ask."

"You'd be surprised, Melissa keeps my secrets well."

Mulder didn't look in the least bit worried. "Melissa likes me."

"So does my Mom, doesn't mean they are going to tell you about all of my teenage transgressions."

"Come on, Scully, I want to know if you were one of those bad, Catholic school girls who hiked up her skirts and dyed her hair pink and hid out in the bathroom smoking."

"I went to a public high school, Mulder, sorry to burst your bubble."

He didn't look in the least bit disappointed.

"Whatever happened to those long ago days," Scully sighed thoughtfully as she stared at a bank of lockers in front of them. "When we were in high school the worst part of life was whether or not the person you had a crush on seemed to notice you. Now at days, there's a bevy of issues; sex, drugs, AIDS, gangs, not to mention all of the angst and woe that goes with normal hormonal fluctuations with being a teenager. You know, when I was in high school the idea of anyone bringing a weapon to school was ludicrous. Now at days kids see more violence in their own classrooms than they do on the news. It's depressing." She stared bleakly in front of her. "And now the kids here are going to think that everything, from he music they listen to, to the games they play is connected to Satan, rather than dealing with the real issue at hand."

"Which is," Mulder prompted. She knew where Mulder was going, she knew he already had in his head what he thought was going on.

"Mulder, I can't buy that there is really witchcraft going on here, no more than I can buy that it's the music these kids listen to, or the shows they watch, or the fact they are going out to the woods to have sex." She threw up her hands as she pushed herself off the wall. "I will grant that the culture here tends to lend itself to this hysteria with this talk of witchcraft and the occult, but all I can see happening here is that there is some sick person preying on the fears of this town and using that to conveniently cover up their crimes. And to ignore that would be the height of irresponsibility."

"What if it isn't an individual?"

"Don't tell me you honestly believe this is the work of a cult, Mulder…"

"No, listen. You said it yourself, this town is steeped in its own stories. What if there are those who believe those stories and elieve them enough to try and reenact them?"

Scully opened her mouth to protest, but Mulder held up a pleading hand to stop her.

"I'm not saying that they are performing real witchcraft Scully. But we have documented cases of groups who perform what they believe are Satanic or occult rights, often with the mutilation of victims, and often with the abuse of children. What we may be dealing with here could be more than just an individual, and perhaps the sheriff and the school administrators aren't all wrong. There could be a cult, I just don't know if there is any Satan exactly involved."

It wasn't a complete dismissal of what Scully was saying, but it still had no more evidence than the townsfolk's running theory either. "That still doesn't make this an X-file, Mulder."

"No, but it does make it a case for the FBI's interest doesn't it? Lets see what we can do to help the sheriff out without feeding the hysterics of the town and we'll see what we turn up."

It sounded reasonable enough. But then it always sounded reasonable when it came from Mulder. "All right. But I swear, Mulder, if they start in on how women wearing pants is a sign of the devil, I'm walking right out of those front doors."

"I'll completely forgive you, Scully."


	66. Two Sides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully attempt to find the thread of truth.

Shannon Ausbury huddled into the comfort of her friends, the girls closing in around her in the communal way all teenage females had. One of them was hurting and they sought to comfort her.

"Think she will be okay?" Mulder watched the girl fretfully as she wandered off the school grounds.

"I think that she'll be fine once she's around friends who can make her feel normal again." That was how it usually worked for her when she was Shannon's age, fleeing to the comfort of her sister or other girls their age. "Shannon's parents will want to know why she didn't come home with us."

Mulder nodded mutely.

"You still want to go over there and talk to them?"

"It's very serious accusations that their daughter is making, Scully. We can't just ignore them." She recognized Mulder's tone and it troubled her. He always did have a soft spot for cases that involved girls, and one in which a child was abused tended to hit him the hardest.

"Before you go barging in there, Mulder, perhaps you should remember that this is based on the memory of a sixteen-year-old girl from years ago. We don't know how reliable it is or if she even saw what she thought she saw."

She wondered if Mulder was even listening. He moved from around the side of the rental car where they had been standing towards the driver's side and got in wordlessly. Sighing heavily and fearing where this conversation was going, Scully followed, getting in the passengers side. "You know a part of this could be her own, mixed up memories regarding the stories she's heard from her parents and neighbors since her childhood." 

Mulder started the car and pulled out of the school's parking lot. "Half-remembered nightmares pulled out of a childhood filled with these sorts of stories. This town seems to thrive on them."

"Have you read up on the files involving occult rituals and sacrifices," Mulder finally asked as he pulled out onto the road, following the directions towards Shannon Ausbury's parents house, the ones they had received from the school office.

"I've glanced through some," she admitted slowly, though she didn't read all of them. With the hundreds of cases that filled Mulder's files, it was usually a matter of reading up on the most pertinent ones for the case they were working on at the time, and she hadn't really bothered to take a look at each one specifically as he had.

"What Shannon described was a type of ritual that is common in a lot of Satanic or demonic worship, a sort of ritual used to appeal and please the demon in question. Often it requires the blood of a virgin or an innocent, babies being the most preferable of choices because of their purity, but small children, even young teenagers before they've reach sexual activity."

"You tell me this as if you believe in these cults."

"The cults are real enough. They've been documented again and again, even in non X-file FBI cases. Most of the ones I have seen up till now I worked on in Violent Crimes. They were fairly easy to spot, usually there would be a spate of child disappearances or missing teenagers and a ritual killing would turn up poorly hidden in a field, or warehouse, or dumpster. The difference with Shannon's case is that none of those murders involved the victims being relatives or friends of cult members. It would be far too difficult to cover up otherwise."

"Which should make you at least think twice about Shannon's story." Scully broached carefully. "I'm not saying that Shannon hasn't perhaps suffered from something horrific in her childhood. Perhaps it was abuse, perhaps it was just fear born from the legends and paranoia that seem to suffuse this town. Think about it, if she had really been pregnant three times already in her young life, wouldn't someone, her parents, a teacher, her schoolmates have noticed something? Pregnancies aren't exactly easy to cover up."

"Not if they terminated it early," Mulder pointed out.

"The inherent dangers of an abortion performed inexpertly, especially on a girl Shannon's age, would be devastating!" Reason seemed to fly out the window with him the moment a child was involved. "If she really had been pregnant and they had tried to terminate the pregnancy for a sacrifice, she could be dead now. And if they had buried all the bodies in the basement, like she said, all it would take is a simple search warrant for us to look down there. But I highly doubt that we'd find anything."

"Do you think a kid would make something like that up?"

"I've seen kids make up all sorts of stories, especially teenagers. They feel lonely, abandoned, unloved by their families. They create fantasy worlds that explain away the emotions they are having, or that cast their parents in bad lights. Given that the parents are usually the main sources of authority in their lives, its not surprising. I think we should just speak with the Ausburys, get their side of the story and figure out what is really going on here."

Their car pulled up close to a residential, suburban house with the street number given to them by the school office. Mulder stopped in the drive thoughtfully, still looking mutinously unwilling to concede his point.

"Imagine," he sighed heavily, his expression grim. "If what she said is true…"

"Why don't we see what her parents have to say?" Scully urged him once again, as the front door to the Ausbury house flung itself open.


	67. The Devil You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully are not sure what to make of what they see.

Her face stung as it rubbed across the polished, oak wood flooring of the high school gymnasium, the wax pulling at her cheek as she was drug across it by her feet. It was as completely a humiliating and compromised situation as Scully had ever found herself in as a federal agent, and at least, she had some small satisfaction in the knowledge she wasn't alone in her embarrassment. Sadly, though, poor Mulder was still out cold. The top of his forehead still bled profusely from a giant goose egg forming there and Scully half worried that he might have a nasty concussion at the end of this. That was if they got out of this. At the moment, with both of them tied up like Thanksgiving turkeys, there looked to be little hope of either of them necessarily making it out in one piece.

"We are federal agents," Scully called to the three teachers, all of whom wore grim faces in the light of the one flashlight between them. "If we go missing, there will be a search for us and they will ask you painful questions."

The woman, Deborah she thought her name was, looked back at the two men nervously. "She's right, you know. The FBI won't ignore two of their own going missing for long."

"By that time the sacrifice will be made, their blood will appease our lack of faith, and all will be taken care off." Calcagni, the school psychiatrist, was the one to respond. "Besides, all we have to do is in the morning turn over the bodies to the sheriff, explain that Jim killed them in a fit of insanity after the death of his daughter, and then disappeared. I can attest to Jim's instability lately, perhaps lay the blame of Jerry Steven's death at his feet. Jim can take the blame for all of it and no one will be the wiser."

Deborah looked vaguely ill at the prospect. Scully knew how she felt. The psychiatrist was plotting murder as callously as if he were filling out a file report, glossing over the fact that in the end, four innocent lives would be taken. She wanted to call him on it, but they had reached the large, double doors at the end of the gym, and the pair struggled to open the heavy metal and drag herself and Mulder through the doorways as the third man, Vitaris, stood by nervously with his flashlight.

Mulder moaned softly as they were drug over the bump that was the doorstop that separated the wooden gym floor from the cold, dusty concrete that formed the hallway they were drug into. Scully could smell the ancient mold, mingled with water, dust, sweaty socks, unwashed work out clothing, and athletic shoes. It was the locker rooms for the school. She wiggled around, trying vainly to kick out at Deborah, as Vitaris drug Mulder first down the narrow hallway and towards a door that said "men" over its top.

"None of that," Calcagni warned, as he lowered his shotgun into Scully's face. She swallowed hard and lay quiescent as Deborah continued to drag her down the hallway.

The men's locker stank of sweat and mildew even more than the hallway did. Scully found herself gagging as Deborah drug her the last, few feet, past wooden benches in front of silent lockers, to the white, tiled showers in the corner. Vitaris managed to drag Mulder over the lip of the shower and onto the tiled floor, dumping him by the drain, and turned to reach for Scully's shoulders, picking her up as easily as if she were a child. He set her down gently, at least, and then reached up for the faucet just over where her head lay.

Cold water sprayed onto her face, stinging it with needle precision as she turned her face away in order to breathe. She coughed, as beside her, Mulder began to rouse and do the same, confused as to where they were. In the dim twilight of the locker room, Scully could hardly see past the spray, but she could make out the three figures huddling around Vitaris's flashlight.

"The water will make the blood easier to clean up," Calcagni assured the other two as they stared down at herself and Mulder. She wanted to protest again, but Deborah pulled out a large, wicked looking dagger, that shined dangerously in the light of the flashlight, its sharp edges liquid silver. In a loud voice, Deborah began chanting, her voice full of ceremonial seriousness, in words that Scully's nearly forgotten German only barely recognized. It sounded vaguely Germanic, but with Latin thrown in as well, some sort of bastardization of the two that made little sense to her. Not that Scully could think particularly clearly as Calcagni raised his shotgun, aiming it carefully.

Deborah brought the dagger down with a sharp, stabbing motion, as in the dark, tiled room the shotgun exploded in a flash of blinding light and gunpowder, the roaring echoing off the tiles. Before Scully could flinch or blink, the gun flashed again, deafening in its reverberation as Mulder beside her flinched and began to attempt to scoot along the slick tile, pulling at his hands tied tightly in the binding behind him.

Scully's eyes widened as Calcagni turned towards them, opening and emptying his shotgun's spent shells as he did. They clattered against the concrete floor near Scully's feet. Panic set in as she realized what he was up to, and she tried to fight her own bonds as well. Almost lazily he pulled out two more cartridges and placidly filled the chambers, clicking the gun shut as his eyes turned coldly to pair of them struggling frantically on the floor at his feet. Swiftly, Calcagni turned the muzzle upwards, pointing it directly into his own face, till he was staring down the twin barrels blankly.

Scully cried out in horror, as beside her Mulder murmured, "no". But it was too late. As the flash exploded, she turned her face towards the cold, wet tile, squeezing her eyes shut against the glare, as the last reverberations of the sound bounced and rattled through the room, fading as Calcagni's body thumped ungracefully to the floor.

She opened her eyes slowly. They met Mulder's own, horrified gaze, his dark hair wet and plastered to his forehead as the spray continued to pour over them. For several, long moments they lay there, both unwilling to look up and too stunned to move. It was only when she began to shiver from the cold water beating on them that Mulder began to inch himself upwards, maneuvering his long legs to a kneeling position despite the bond around them.

"OK, I need you to roll over until your wrists are facing me." He turned to sit flat on the floor, turning his back so that his hands faced her, bound behind him.

"You think you can undo these tied up? The rope is soaking wet."

"I think I can get it undone enough that your smaller hands can wiggle out and get us both free." He scooted backwards till he bumped straight into her, his bound fingers groping until he found her smaller hands and the rope tied inexpertly there.

"Piece of cake," he quipped as he worked on the soggy fibers. She could feel his long fingers pulling and tugging on the knot.

"Did you see his face," Scully breathed, gasping in the cold spray as Mulder worked. He had been so blank as he pulled the trigger, as if he wasn't even aware of what he was doing. "It was as if something else had control of him."

"Paddock," Mulder muttered, referring to the substitute science teacher, the woman who had led them to Calcagni, Deborah, and Vitaris in the first place.

"Why her?" She gasped as Mulder freed the knot enough to allow her to work her hands free. She was really, really beginning to hate this idea being bound and tied up every other case. She flipped over on her side, turning so she could reach Mulder's hands and work her small fingers through the knot enough to free him.

"I think Paddock is more than just a hard-nosed sub. I think she was sent her to punish the unfaithful. Shannon was in her class the other day when she broke down. And she was with Paddock when she had her 'accident'." He groaned slightly as Scully freed his hands. He twisted and turned his wrists at the joints, and like her immediately reached to undo the knots at his ankles.

"You think Paddock killed Shannon?" Scully was horrified. "Why?"

"To teach Ausbury a lesson. To teach them all lessons about those who fall away from the faith," Mulder murmured darkly. "They really all were demon worshipers, Scully, for generations. But they fell away from their duty. And the devil came to collect her due."

Scully stopped in mid-knot, staring at Mulder as he yanked the last of his bindings off and tossed them aside. "You seriously believe that?" Not even she, who had been raised with the concept of demons and angels as a matter of religious course could buy that the dowdy, hard-as-hell science teacher really was the devil her students all suspected her of being.

"Only way to know is asking her." Mulder reached over for the rope still binding her ankles, and working the last of it off. He stood, holding out a hand to help her up still slick shower.

"Ugh!" She gasped slightly as Mulder turned off the water and she got her first good look at all three victims. Shotgun wounds were never pretty and were worse at point blank range. She had seen many of them in her time. Neither Vitaris nor Deborah had much left in the way of a torso; their insides turned to chunks of shredded muscle and shattered bone. Beside them lay Calcagni, his entire face obliterated as brain and tissue sprayed the area just behind where he stood, gore covering every inch of the locker room.

"Hell of a mess for the janitor when he gets in,." Mulder looked vaguely green, but tugged at her arm. "We have to find Paddock."

Stepping carefully through the mess of blood and remains, they managed to make it through the locker room and back up through the darkened school. Their steps rang hollow through empty halls and shuttered lockers, till they reached the science lab. The door was unlocked and swung open easily enough, but the lab was empty, the equipment and stools that normally filled it broken and smashed, as if a tornado ripped through the facility, tossing everything helter skelter about.

"Mrs. Paddock," Scully called. There was no sign of the woman who, when they had left her, had been severely rattled and frightened. She turned towards the blackboard, her eyes widening at the white lines that showed faintly in the dim light from the classroom windows. "Mulder."

He turned towards her pointing finger and pulled out the flashlight he had in his pocket. It miraculously still worked, despite the bath it had taken, and he shined it on the board, reading the large, graceful, looping writing that hearkened back to the sort of penmanship on would have found in their grandparents generation. The message was simple, "Goodbye. It's been nice working with you."

Scully felt a shiver of something, she wasn't sure what, go up her spine as she turned to stare at Mulder. He swallowed hard as he met her eyes, clearly just as frightened and unnerved as she was. Above them, the lights shined on again, as in the distance they could hear the fans for the schools ventilation system kick in once again. Scully looked around to the ruins of the classroom, towards the door, and back at Mulder again, the unspoken question lying there between them.

"Scully," he breathed, "I don't think I want to know this one….I…just really don't want to know."

"Me either," she murmured as she pushed her soaking wet hair off her face. "When's the next flight out of Manchester to DC?"

"Too late. There's not another flight till tomorrow."

"Think you can get us to Boston and a flight out of there."

"How long do you think it will take us to get changed and packed at the hotel?"

"Ten minutes, tops," Scully calculated. Screw drying her hair, she wanted clean clothes and to get the hell out of this town as fast as possible.

"Right. So lets give the Sheriff a call, let him figure out the logistics and promise him a copy of our report, shall we?" Mulder reached for her arm and pulled her towards the door.

"Sounds like a plan to me." Scully agreed, enthusiastically, her steps rushing close behind him.


	68. To Be In Carolina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder discusses his mother's family.

They hadn't discussed the case in New Hampshire. They hadn't said a word to one another about it. Scully had tried, when she had futile attempted to piece together a report for Skinner, but Mulder had stubbornly refused. She had been left to cobble together something born from the reports of Sheriff Oakes, their personal investigation and her theories on mass hysteria feeding into a suicide pact among the over-wrought teachers. It was all bullshit, she realized, every bit of it. But it seemed to sneak past Skinner's sensitive BS meter. He accepted it without a word, signed off on it, and she had filed the case as solved and complete. That had been a week ago, and her partner was silent…disquietingly so. Not a peep of a new case, not an excited gleam in his eye, not even a word about an alien sighting.

Mulder had officially been spooked. That was saying something even for Spooky Mulder.

She stepped into the office much as she had ever day since they had gotten back from New Hampshire, quiet, wary, and wondering just what was going through Mulder's all-too-closed off mind. She had been prepared for yet another day of paperwork, filing, and the general busy work she managed in the few, still days they ever had. She still had their report from the Aubrey case to finish, she was simply waiting on an update from Lieutenant Tillman in Missouri on BJ's condition, and once done she could hand that in to Skinner for his approval. For once, she thought, they would be caught up on cases, on work, and maybe, just maybe she could have the first room to breath since she had returned to the X-files four months ago.

Mulder looked up as she came in, nodded and held up a case file in his hand. "We got work to do, Scully."

"Work?" She frowned over to the stack of notes she still had from the Aubrey, Missouri case.

"Field work, military has kicked over something that Skinner sent to us personally." Whatever had scared the crap out of him in New Hampshire subsided and there was the familiar, frenetic energy about him. "You have your overnight bag with you."

"As always," she sighed in defeat. There went her quiet breather. "Where are we headed?"

"Raleigh," he replied promptly, "More precisely Folkstone, North Carolina, there is a Marine base there they are using to process Haitian nationals who are claiming political asylum in the wake of the recent government turmoil."

"And why is this coming to the FBI and not going through Marine channels?" She frowned, knowing all to well how guarded the military was about the things that went on in their bases and with their men and women.

"The victim's wife has been trying to go through normal military channels, but no one is listening, not with the Marines, the Navy, or the DOD. She came to the FBI for help. And Skinner has a soft spot for any Marine who died under suspicious circumstances." Mulder shot Scully a knowing look. He had shared with her Skinner's story from his days in Vietnam, the strange experience he had when he thought he had died. She had kept that information as quiet as Skinner had intended it to be.

"So we are heading to North Carolina," she turned to her desk. "Do I at least get a chance to check my email?"

"Sure, our flight doesn't leave till noon." She moved towards her table, and began booting up her system. They hadn't been to North Carolina in a little over a year. Not since her father had passed away and Mulder had nearly been killed on the Boggs case. She shivered slightly, remembering how pale his face had been as she tried to staunch the flow of blood through her trembling fingers.

"Since we will be in Carolina," Mulder broke into her thoughts cheerfully. "I think we need another stop on my barbecue tour.

She turned to him, puzzled for a moment, before narrowing her eyes and shaking her head. "Mulder, you can't continually eat crap and expect to live long."

"On the contrary, I eat crap and I'm as healthy as a horse." He patted his stomach under his dress shirt. It gave a firm thump as the muscles there hardly moved. She hated him, she realized, hated his metabolism, the way he could eat like a teenager and not even notice it and not have to worry about things like fat, calories, or fiber. Of course, she knew Mulder exercised like a fiend, even while on a case he ran, played basketball, shot hoops, something active, anything to burn through the excess energy that seemed to keep her partner in a state of perpetual motion. She suspected it was to dull his mind and his senses enough that he could rest and sleep, something he was unable to do in a more lethargic state.

Still, she hated him for it.

"So what sort of barbecue is it this time? We had pork ribs in Tennessee, beef ribs in Wisconsin, brisket in Kansas City…."

"Pulled pork," he nodded. "My Uncle Joe makes amazing pulled pork. Pity we can't swing by their place."

"I thought you hated visiting your mother's family?" He certainly hadn't sounded fond of the idea on the few occasions she brought it up.

"I hate visiting some of my mother's family," he clarified. "Uncle Joe isn't a Kuiper though. Maybe that makes a difference."

Scully smiled and shook her head at the vagaries of Mulder's complex family tree. She had heard the occasional story on the Kuiper clan, his mother's family, far more than she had heard about the Mulders. It wasn't particularly surprising, Mulder wasn't close to his father and had lived with his mother exclusively after his parents' separation. He probably had little to no contact with the side of the family whose name he bore.

"How did you mother's family end up in North Carolina of all places?" It was a puzzle to her. Mulder had grown up in Massachusetts, his mother was born in Ohio and her family hailed from New York."

"Aunt Mary married Uncle Joe when he got back from his army service in Germany. They settled in North Carolina because that was where he was stationed." Mulder rattled it off with the easy practice of knowledge of ones own personal history. "She and Mom are the only remaining siblings. There was a brother, but I think he died before I was born." He shrugged. "Anyway, I guess since Aunt Mary had five billion kids, and Mom didn't, we traveled down there. You learn a lot in visits to North Carolina. How to fish, how to swim, how to avoid your asshole cousins who think leeches are neat."

"However did you survive?" She smirked at the very idea of child Mulder surrounded by a pack of far more rambunctious cousins.

"I begged off visits as a teenager. I got into baseball, was good at it, so I had that as a convenient excuse." He shrugged. "I can't say that my mother tried to force the issue."

Not for the first time Scully mused on how sad and lonely Mulder's life became the instant Samantha disappeared from it. Unlike the large, bustling Scully clan, with cousins, aunts, uncles, and family members that Scully vaguely remembered, but always thought of fondly, Mulder's family was fractured and disjointed, kin who had at one time been close, forever cut off by one shattering event in their lives. It was no small wonder then that Mulder focused so much on a sister who had been gone for over twenty years. It was the breaking point for his entire life.

"So, pulled pork." She cleared her throat as she pulled her email up on the computer. "What's up with that barbecue again?"

Perhaps Mulder would fill his arteries with enough grease to choke a horse, but at least they would be on an X-file again. And she wouldn't have to worry about a completely spooked partner. Besides, it would be far too disturbing to her sensibilities to have Fox Mulder weirded out by a case and not eating junk food as well. If he gave up porn, she would have him committed. What a strange commentary on the man she was partnered with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For continuities sake, it always bugged me Teena Mulder was buried in North Carolina and it never made a ton of sense. So, this was my explanation as to how this convoluted Mulder family tree twisted around, 'cause why not?


	69. Bring Me Your Poor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully face the problem of mass political asylum.

The Folkstone INS Processing center was well away from the nearby town, far from anyone who would be curious enough to look too closely into what was going on at the center that was filled to well past capacity with the refuges from Haiti's political upheaval. The island nation had a tumultuous government at best and this latest exodus of citizens fled to the United States with the hopes of being accepted immediately as political exiles. But as with all things as politically charged as exiles and immigrants in the US, the process was slow, as the Department of Immigration and Naturalization decided where to move the hundreds of destitute, homeless refugees.

"Whatever happened to 'bring me your poor'?" Scully eyed the huddled groups just inside the gates as Mulder pulled up to the heavily fortified front gate. Two, stoic faced Marines waved them in and stopped the car while reviewing both of their ID's.

"I think that went right out the window when the US couldn't take care of its own poor," Mulder replied, taking back both of their badges and handing Scully hers as he tucked his in his coat. "Instead we send in smart bombs and peace keeping missions to help the struggling masses to break free."

"How come no one is talking about this in public," she frowned as she glanced towards the barbed wiring fencing where hundreds of shivering, dark skinned people sat, wrapped up in the cold of February, watching their car with apathetic, disinterested eyes.

"Because the State Department is sitting so hard on this one, it would take an anal probe to ferret it out. I gave a call to one of Dad's old friends there. It's some sort of clusterfuck, to be sure, the Haitian government won't take these people back and the US government doesn't want them here. They are a people without a country. So they sit here, waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For State or the White House to figure out what to do with them." They stepped out of their car, the sounds of hundreds of murmuring voices rising in cacophony around them. Many eyes watched them as they stepped towards the guard shack by the entrance into the grounds proper, some angry and resentful, others only merely curious. Most ignored them as Mulder rounded the car beside her and immediately placed a hand to that familiar spot in the small of her back. She had to admit it was comforting as the stepped past the thick tension of the gate and towards the waiting Marine watching them step up.

"Agents Mulder and Scully," Mulder introduced them. "We're here to see Colonel Wharton."

The young man nodded and escorted them inside the perfunctory looking building, bare walls opened only to the two windows in the building, one that looked out towards the front gates, one that looked out over the mass of men in the yard. "Sign in here, please."

Mulder reached for the clipboard the young man had, scribbling his name on one line as he passed it to Scully for her signature. Two other Marines in the room stood, gathering their things and arming themselves with automatic rifles that they had standing at the ready. Scully eyed them warily, frowning at the young Marine who was handling their check in.

"Is it necessary for them to carry weapons, Corporal?" Scully glanced at the insignia on the young man's uniform marking his rank.

"Yes, ma'am, Colonel Wharton's orders," the young man assured her solemnly. "We've had riots here in the last week, ma'am, we don't want you getting hurt."

Scully shot Mulder a knowing look. They had heard about the riots, but not about the measures taken by the colonel to quell the anger in the camp. "We are armed, Corporal."

"I know ma'am. I'll have to ask you to turn over your weapons for now." The young man was apologetic at least.

"Even if we do know how to use them," Mulder asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. If the Marine noticed it, he chose to say nothing.

"Sorry sir, we want to ensure your safety and that of everyone here. Any one of the refugees could try to take it and we'd be forced to shoot and kill them."

"Shoot and kill?" Scully was horrified. "These are people here seeking political asylum."

"I understand that, ma'am," the Marine replied crisply. "But they are also dangerous."

"I'd be dangerous too if I was forced to live outside for months without the promise of a home or a place to live," Mulder murmured, unclipping his holster from his belt and passing it over to the Marine. Scully did the same, reaching under her heavy wool coat for her holster and pulling it out to give to the Marine.

"I'll have these returned when you leave," he assured them both, looking at the serial number of each and writing them down on the clipboard beside their names. "If you'll follow your escorts, they'll lead you to Colonel Wharton's office."

"Thank you." They murmured in unison as they followed the two-armed escorts to the game.

"Why all this aggression?" Scully murmured to Mulder as they stepped towards the gates, their escort marking smartly in front of them.

"I can only suppose that after the riots they are trying to prevent anything possible from setting them off."

"Well of course they would riot, Mulder, these people are being caged and kept like animals." She glanced at one man, wrapped in a Marine issued, woolen blanket, staring at them as they stepped inside. "They are human beings, why is it they are being forced to live like this on American soil?"

"Because nobody wants them," Mulder replied sadly as the gates opened, and he stepped inside, with her following close behind.


	70. Voodoo That You Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully doubts the magic of voudon.

Snakes and curses, witchcraft and spells, Scully swore softly as she watched Mulder take off after the young, Haitian boy, Chester, while she waited at the car. The boy was surprisingly fast, outstripping even Mulder's long legs as they both disappeared down a pier. She waited with half-an-eye in the direction of her partner, the other on the Marine private who had driven away with his story of his long, lost bride taken by voodoo curses. Witches in New England, voodoo in the South. Was this world losing its collective sensibility she wondered? How in this day and age did sane, rational adults in America still buy into the ideas of magic and demons when science had proven time and time again most of what people mistook for magic had a simple, logical explanation. Why this persistence in believing in the supernatural, when the natural world could so much more easily explain the phenomenon around them?

Mulder rounded the corner from the pier again, empty handed and puzzled. "Did you see him come this way?"

"No," she called back, frowning. She had kept an eye out, but Chester hadn't run back behind Mulder. And certainly there wasn't anywhere really he could go on the narrow pier. "He didn't fall in, did he?"

"No," Mulder shook his head negatively as he came closer. "He just…disappeared."

"Disappeared?" She couldn't help but sound disbelieving. "He's a boy, Mulder, he probably just found a box on the dock and hid under it. I'm sure seeing the Marine out here scared him. He was afraid we turned him in for being outside of the detention center."

"Maybe," Mulder replied, frowning back at the pier at a small, black kitten that sauntered off the deck and scampered to a large, garbage dumpster nearby. Scully watched his gaze follow the cat as it scurried into the darkness under the metal container, suspiciously eyeing her partner's curious profile.

"You don't believe this voodoo talk, do you?" She frowned pointedly as she nodded towards the dumpster. "It's just a cat, not a child."

"You heard what Private Dunham said, Scully. How do you think those snakes got in that girl?"

"Superstition," she shot back promptly. "Mulder, we don't even know if that story is any more real than the crap they were spewing in New Hampshire. How is it that voodoo witch doctors are any more or less real than demonic forces taking over a small, New England town?"

Mulder shivered slightly as she brought up their last case. It still unnerved him. "We have no reason to doubt Dunham's story."

"And we have no reason to believe it either. I've heard those sorts of ghost stories since I was a child. And I'm sure Private Dunham has too, and its been exacerbated by the events going on at the base, the stress on the prisoners, compounded with the stress on the troops. You heard what he said about Colonel Wharton's orders. No wonder there is riots going on there, Mulder. Under those sorts of conditions I'd believe in ghost stories, too."

"Why is it that Colonel Wharton is ordering his men to abuse foreign exiles who are here seeking asylum?" Mulder's brain shifted from voodoo to abuse in the blink of an eye. "The minute something like this got out into the public, the State Department would be caught in a shit storm of fury from the international community. Does he have orders to keep them here? Does the US government suspect them of anything?" The question baffled her as well. And clearly neither of them had the answer to that question.

So how did this all tie in for Mulder, she wondered. "So to clarify, you suspect that Private McAlpin was placed under some voodoo curse in retaliation for Colonel Wharton's pressure on the refugees for some unspecified, classified reason."

"That sounds about right," Mulder confirmed despite her disbelieving snort. "Science already knows about the chemicals used to supposedly 'zombify' people. You saw the components in McAlpin's blood tests yourself and you saw that the man is still alive, but about as responsive as talking to a brick wall. Whether its really magic or not, you can't deny the science right in front of your nose, Doctor Scully."

Perturbed wasn't the right word for what she was feeling right now. Mulder's knowing smirk irritated her, but he was right. Whether there was anything magical to it or not, it was obvious whatever happened to Private McAlpin was connected to the voodoo arts, and thus back to the Haitian refugees. But what did they have or know that would possess the US military to break international law and torture innocent refugees enough to earn their wrath and retribution.

"I say we find out just what Colonel Wharton wants from Pierre Bauvais, we find out why it is that they are throwing voodoo curses around." Mulder opened his door and stepped inside. "I'll see if I can get in touch with some of my father's old contacts at State, see if anyone can shed some light on this."

"Right," Scully sighed, moving to join him in the car. Somehow she doubted that despite Mulder's father's influence in the State Department at one point in time, he was going to get much of anywhere in terms of information on the Haitians or Bauvais. Something told her they might just end up at the end of another big, fat dead end on this case. She was beginning to hate the word "witchcraft".


	71. Black Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully confronts old magic.

Scully studied her palm in the faint light from outside of their car. The moving street lights were the only light she had to see the itching, painful welt on the top of her hand. Really, it had been only a little scratch, a tiny prick from a thorn, nothing unusual about that. She had spent her childhood running around with pricks and knicks from various branches and brambles she had insisted on running through. Nothing had caused the sort of allergic reaction she was suffering now. Her palm was bright red, the skin swollen and hot to the touch as she pressed the tender flesh gently. It itched, though she didn't dare scratch it. She had no idea what the contagion was that was causing this reaction and until she could get to the hospital and have it properly treated she didn't want to spread any pus or substance anywhere. 

And of course, she frowned she was heading to a graveyard with Mulder, without even a proper bandage on it. She hoped that it would hold out until she could get medical attention. Damn, but it hurt. She folded it neatly in her lap, hoping to avoid any probing questions from Mulder on the subject. If he'd displayed a wound like hers on his hand, he would have simply brushed it aside, rubbed some dirt on it, and continued on as if it were nothing more than a paper cut. She highly doubted he'd have the same reaction if he saw her hand and she was in no mood to have an argument with him about something as trivial as this. Especially not with the pounding headache forming behind her temples right at that moment. She stifled a whimper as a vein in the side of her head twitched angrily. She rubbed at it absently, feeling all the muscles of her scalp tense like wire across her skull. Perfect, a wounded hand and a headache. The thought of septicemia had occurred to her as she watched her hand begin to swell. But she had taken all the standard shots required by the Bureau for their work. However not every shot would prevent every pathogen, and she had no idea what she had been into at that refugee camp, nor what was on the dried, thorny branch she had picked up.

Brilliant, Dana, she thought to herself, you are the special agent with the medical degree, a doctor, and you would be the one to die of blood poisoning because you were an idiot. That is brilliant. She grimaced in the face of the oncoming light as for a moment her migraine shot spiking pains through her brain. Mulder turned the car into the graveyard where Pierre Bauvais was buried. The searing pain did not stop as the lights moved down the road and she felt slightly ill and nauseous as Mulder brought the car to a stop. She covered her face with her hands, pressed her fingers against her forehead, breathing slowly and deeply and forcing down the urge to vomit all over the rented car.

"What is it, Scully?" Mulder was alert immediately, like she expected he would be. She waved him off, shaking her head and slapping on the best, most composed face she could manage.

"I'm all right." It was a lie. She was seeing two of everything and her head felt as if it might squeeze itself into a pulp.

"You don't look all right."

"No, I'm fine." She wasn't, but they were losing time, and she didn't need to be fussed over or coddled. "I'll catch up with you. Just go get Wharton."

For a moment she thought he'd ignore her and demand that they leave for the hospital. But Colonel Wharton was in the graveyard and if they didn't manage to arrest him then their whole case would be shut down the minute the military stepped in. They would return to Washington and Skinner empty handed, and no matter how she felt, Scully wasn't about to allow that to happen, even if it meant her head falling off. Without a word, Mulder got out of the car, pulling out his weapon as he did so, and rushed off into the darkness of the municipal graveyard, shooting back a worried frown towards the car as he did so.

Scully watched him leave, realizing as he went she was now left alone in the car, in a cemetery, and feeling perhaps the worst she had felt since her abduction months ago. Despite all of the warnings she had given herself, she absently scratched at the excruciating wound, feeling her heart race as it burned and itched, a clear pus beginning to form. She stared at it in confused horror, wondering just what sort of infection caused that sort of reaction, a feeling of nervous dread settling over her. It was as if she were being watched, sitting there alone in this car, her hand aching and weeping, her head pounding rhythmically as her heart fluttered in her throat. Panic set in as she turned about her, glancing in the rearview mirror, trying to see why it was she felt the unnerved feeling, as if someone were watching her, causing this reaction.

Damn witchcraft and damn voodoo, she was starting to lose her mind too.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as her hand began to throb in time to the beating in her temple. She stared at it, as out of the scratch more fluid formed, and a bulge began to swell up, rising in the center of her small hand. Under the perfectly white skin, two dark lumps rose, darker than blood. She watched in horrified fascination as the lumps rose, spread, and pressed against the tautness of her skin, threatening to split her flesh in two. Her eyes bulged and her pulse roared in her already thundering ears as a weak scream caught in her throat, terrified as out of the scratch in her palm two, dark brown fingers pushed out.

She blinked against the image, just for the briefest of seconds. It couldn't be happening, it shouldn't be happening, this was not happening. She must have a fever, that was it, a fever causing her to hallucinate! It was a reaction to her wound and she was simply creating such images out of a fevered mind. When she opened her eyes again, she would be safe in the car, she would be alive, and she would find Mulder and get him to take her to the nearest hospital, quickly.

When she opened her eyes, however, she wasn't alone. The angry eyes of one of the Haitian men from the camp, one of the men who accosted her, met her own, filled with dark menace, sitting in Mulder's seat. He reached across and without a word slammed his fingers around her throat and began to squeeze.

Her already pulsating brain reached a breaking point, as the steel vice of this man's fingers dug into the soft flesh of her throat, cutting off her windpipe and crushing into her larynx. She couldn't scream, she could barely fight back as her hands reached up futily to claw at the dark skin of the man's hand, her thick, manicured nails leaving what she knew had to be deep welts. Whether he felt it or was affected by it was hard to say, he didn't flinch. Instead he began to mutter at her, in the Creole French of the Haitians, words she could only vaguely understand from her high school French, none of it making sense to her. She wanted to beg him, to tell him she had no idea what he was saying. Somehow she didn't think it would matter over much if she did, she had an idea this man was set to kill her.

She needed a weapon, any weapon. Her own was trapped beneath her in the seat, sitting snuggly on her hip. She was pinned against it, and unable to reach it. Her eyes roved the cabin of the car, looking for anything to grab. They settled on the dashboard, where Mulder had tossed the small pouch he had purchased off the Haitian boy, Chester Bonaparte. He had passed it to them after Scully had been harassed in the camp as they were walking through. Harassed by this man as a matter of fact, a man so angry as to threaten a female Federal officer in the presence of the military. Chester had talked the man down and had immediately offered the small bag. She had assumed the boy with his charming, a con man smile had only been trying to make a quick buck, the way of all poor children under dire circumstances. Without any other options, really, she reached for it, stretching her arm despite the iron grip of the Haitian man beside her, her manicured nails snagging it as her fingers reached to grab a hold tightly around the charm.

The minute it rested firmly in her hand, the grip on her throat released, and the dark skinned man vanished, as if he had never been in the car with her. Scully blinked, breathless with terror as she stared at the driver's seat, coughing against the bruises against her windpipe. He had just been there. Now just as mysteriously as he appeared, the man was gone. She stared down at the charm in her hand, all hint of the scratch, even the swelling and pus, now gone as she regarded the simple, felt baggie. It had been given to her by Chester as protection he said. She had chalked it up to superstition, nothing more, merely bones and dirt in a bag to be regarded as a quaint trinket when they got home to Washington.

Outside the car, a cat meowed, loudly. Scully looked up, out of the front window, as a black cat blinked at her mildly from its perch on the hood of the car. Its yellow eyes blinked pale in the moonlight as it watched Scully. She could almost swear there was something of a charming smirk on the cat's feline face. She had seen this cat before, the day before, when Mulder had chased after Chester Bonaparte. But it couldn't be….no, she thought, black cat's weren't so uncommon. Perhaps it was just the oddest of coincidences?

The cat twitched one ear as it cocked its head sideways at her, almost as if it were laughing. This was all becoming far too strangely surreal for her. Her hands shaking, she reached for the car door, stumbling out into the dew-covered grass, calling Mulder's name into the darkness as she rushed off on rubbery legs in the direction she saw him go.

She found him, lying on his back in the damp grass, clearly stunned. He groaned slightly as she ran up, panting beside him, helping him struggle to sit up. "Mulder?"

He nodded and waved her off. "You okay?" He asked with equal worry.

She glanced him up and down; he was covered in grass and mud. She realized in that moment that her headache, the one that had blurred her vision and sliced through her brain, had disappeared, along with the swollen, infected scratch on her hand. "I feel better than you look."

Wordlessly, she sank to the ground beside him, ignoring her slacks as they became soaked in heavy dew. Her breath burned in her lungs, and her limbs felt drained and lifeless. All the adrenaline fled her system in one huge rush, leaving her numb on the ground beside her partner.

"What happened," she gasped quietly as she looked about for any sign of Colonel Wharton. It took her several moments to recognize that the dark lump of fabric sitting by the open grave in front of them was the colonel, still and unmoving.

"I don't know." Mulder admitted, his eyes still cloudy and stunned from whatever happened to him. He shook his head, trying to clear it as she rose to move towards Wharton's body. It didn't take much of a study to see what was going on.

"He's dead." She glanced at Mulder, still breathless on the grass. "Did you kill him?"

"No." He frowned, staring towards a simple, pine wood coffin lying by the open grave. "It was Bauvais."

Scully normally would have scoffed at him, reminded him pointedly that Bauvais was dead and could hardly have killed the colonel. But she had seen another dead man rise up and kill someone in this case, and she was not going to sneer at that idea again, not after all of the other weirdness she had seen that night. She moved towards the casket, opening the simple, pine lid and staring inside. Pierre Bauvais lay there, his dark skin gray under the moonlight, his body already entering into the stages of advanced decay. He was, in her medical opinion, quite dead. She turned towards Mulder. He didn't have to ask what was inside, he knew. "I know what I saw, Scully."

She didn't contradict him. Her mouth pursed in a firm, hard line as she nodded, and thought of the other Haitian man she had seen that night, the one whose fingerprints were rising up into large, purple welts on her throat. She could no more explain how that happened than she could explain how it was Colonel Wharton died.

"I think our official report should reflect that Colonel Wharton was found murdered in the cemetery while attempting to desecrate the grave of Pierre Bauvais." She closed the lid on Bauvais's corpse. "And I think we should state that due to unconfirmed claims of abuse on the part of the men under Wharton's charge, retaliatory attack were taken by the refugees at the camp. Case closed." She dusted her hands off as she turned to Mulder, who was slowly rising from the grass, clutching his stomach painfully.

"You sure you are all right?" She resisted the urge to rush over and start prodding at him, knowing he'd just do the same thing she would and tell her he was fine.

"I'll be okay." He exhaled, staring down at Wharton's body. "So what do you think of witchcraft and wives tales now, Scully?" It wasn't exactly needling her, but there was something of "I-told-you-so" in his tone. After his own experience in New Hampshire with Mrs. Paddock, she figured she deserved some slight ribbing from Mulder on this case and her doubts. She rubbed at her hand absently.

"I don't want to hear the words 'witchcraft' or 'magic' again in a case for a long, long time." She grabbed Mulder's elbow, gently dragging him away from the grave. "Let's call in the locals, let's go to the hotel, and get some sleep."

For once, Mulder didn't argue the point with her.


	72. You've Got To Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is stuck in traffic.

The District of Columbia didn't have traffic. It had a continuing, national nightmare, sometimes punctuated by moments of brief lucidity. Scully's knuckles whitened around the top of her steering wheel as she gritted her teeth, trying desperately to not think hateful thoughts to the person sitting in front of her in traffic with Virginia license plates and a sticker that read "My child is an honor student at…." Really, it wasn't this poor, innocent persons fault that she had been stuck in the same lane, on the same block, in the center of the district, for the last twenty minutes. This person ahead of her had a job in government, much like she did, had a child who apparently was some sort of genius honor student at school, probably had a mortgage and car payments to make. No, this person wasn't to blame for the growing headache pounding in her brain or the impatient tapping of her left foot.

No, that would be whatever whack job, crazy that had decided it would be a brilliant idea to jump across the White House security, onto the front lawn of perhaps the most heavily fortified area of the entire country, and take potshots at a national landmark to make a statement of dissatisfaction against the country's president. Because taking their disgruntlement to the polls, or better yet to their own personal Congressman, wasn't nearly as flashy as being tackled by fully armed and dangerous Secret Service men as they carried you off to jail? Why bother sending an email to your legally elected representative, when tying up traffic in downtown for hours and making people late for work is so much more effective of a message?

Welcome to America, where even the weirdoes got a say, she sighed, as finally she managed to get to the traffic light at intersection she had been caught in for so long. Hope appeared to be in sight another block ahead…if she got that far. It was sad, really, that this person had turned to violence as their only redress. Besides the fact that it painted whoever they were as a member of a lunatic fringe, it certainly did nothing for the political spirit of a country where bi-partisanship came off as a dirty swear word. Scully wasn't exactly the most politically astute of people. Like the average American, she paid attention to the inner workings of Congress and the White House when it affected her directly. But even she knew about the deep, nasty, almost unbridgeable divide between Republicans and Democrats in Washington. As part of the non-partisan side of the Executive Branch of the US government, it often felt as if she were caught in the middle of no-mans land as a civil war of American ideals raged on around her. The two parties flung poisoned tipped arrows and dangerous fireballs at one another, while she, a simple government law enforcement officer tried to do her job everyday, minding her own business and ignoring the political rabble rousing.

It just so happened that her job was essentially to help her partner look for signs of alien life and ferret out some sort of grand, government conspiracy to hide it all. Really, it wasn't the worst job in the world. Well, if she could manage to keep Mulder in one piece - or herself for that matter. It would soon be two years since she had first stepped foot into the X-files offices, when she had first been assigned as Mulder's partner, there to debunk his private work. She had come as the spy, the enemy, and the outsider who was sent to file her own, separate reports, there to undermine the research that Mulder put into his cases. At least that was what she was supposed to be. Since then, he had become something more than a madman hanging out in the basement office, and she was no longer looked on as a suspicious snitch. After all of that, the loss, the fear, and the betrayal, she hoped she had earned out of Mulder his complete trust. God knows he certainly had hers. If his respect and belief in her and her work, despite all of her arguments against his theories wasn't an indication, then certainly was the fact that he believed they would find her. His steadfast faith had kept her going, even when all rational thought said she should not.

And not even traffic jams or crazy people shooting at the president could take away from that fact. For whatever reason, she had become a part of Mulder's quest. And for now at least, she was content to stay there. Even if it meant she had to plow through the hell that was DC traffic to get to the office everyday. As long as she had her morning coffee, she shrugged, as she reached for the thermos that sat in her cup holder. Ahead she could see the monolith that was the Hoover Building, as around her the traffic began to lift, ever so slightly. Finally, when she was almost near work anyway. Well, she reasoned, better late than never. Perhaps the other civil servants, all fighting along side her in the insanity that passed for traffic in DC had nice, boring, safe desk jobs in cubby holes across the Washington area. But how many of them could say they ever got to see a real, live flukeman. Perhaps that's something she couldn't exactly brag about at dinner parties. But she could guarantee no one else had these sorts of mental conversations on their way into work.


	73. Burn in Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully investigate the death of an abortion doctor.

Scully spent their entire flight from DC to Scranton, Pennsylvania trying to understand how there could possibly be three identical abortion doctors, in three different locations, all dying from the same exact cause, and none of them leaving a record of themselves anywhere. It just wasn't possible. And yet, there it was, laughing in her face. She sighed as she snapped shut the file folder, glancing sideways as Mulder drove to the main Scranton police precinct. Federal marshals were holding their suspect in one of the death, that of Doctor Landon Prince, a gynecologist and abortion clinic operator in town. According to them, Doctor Prince had burned to death, though his body was never found.

"Do they know how the suspect supposedly started the blaze?" Mulder hadn't received very few details from the US Marshal's office on the attack and for obvious reason. US Marshals, like every other intelligence and law enforcement agency under the federal government, were very territorial about their jurisdiction, and disliked the tendency the FBI had to horn into what they considered their "territory". Frankly, it wasn't in the US Marshals purview to conduct an investigation into the matter, technically that belonged to the Bureau. But such technicalities were often forgotten when things such as politics and funding were on the line.

"The Scranton Fire Marshal suspects that this Calvin Sistrunk of the murders." Mulder nodded towards the folder on her lap, his eyes never leaving the road. "Sistrunk is the leader of a church in Western Pennsylvania that is vehemently anti-abortion and anti-homosexual. His people have been linked to several threats on other abortion doctors in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He was at the clinic the day it was burned, and was seen harassing several of the staff members there, including Doctor Prince."

"And they are pretty certain this is the guy?"

"Well, he did have an advertisement in his wallet asking for Prince specifically."

"Hardly damning evidence, but certainly not good for his case." Scully frowned at the road ahead of them at the picturesque buildings of the old, coal city. "You know, I find it hard to understand the mindset of someone who proposes that they believe in the right of life for all beings, but is willing to murder someone in cold blood. The hypocrisy of that astounds me."

"The sentiment is mutual, Scully." Mulder agreed grimly. "Though I have a feeling that the good, Reverend Sistrunk is going to tell us he was on a mission from God to purge the world of the wickedness of from the evils of baby killers."

"And it doesn't occur to men like Sistrunk that there are laws against murder in this country?"

"You know these type, Scully, they are above any human law, they work on God's law alone." Mulder had entered the now familiar territory of religious debate between them. She couldn't help but bristle, ever so slightly, at the insinuation lying just beneath the surface. Those who believed in God were, by their nature, already willing to believe anything, why not just throw the rules of a civilized society out of the window too?

"What type is that, Mulder?" She didn't want to get into this debate with him, but he had already started to tread the edges of that thin ice. She merely wanted to see how far he would go out on it.

He didn't like that she was allowing him his own rope. He could see what she was doing and his faced puckered irritably. "I'm not insinuating every Christian or believer is out there screaming to anyone who will listen that God said it's okay to murder abortion doctors. What I am saying is that men like Sistrunk and his congregation encourage this idea that they are above the law, above the rules and ideals and can answer only to God in laws of morality. This has been an excuse used by fanatics for many faiths throughout the centuries. And it will continue to be used by those who believe their hard line, narrow views of the world."

Scully of course logically knew all this already. As a woman of faith she had long ago had to reconcile the differences of her own beliefs with those of the church she belonged to. She knew for some, even amongst her fellow Catholics, where was no leeway, no budging on those ideals that their ancestors had held dear in their religion for close to two thousand years. But she didn't think she would ever be able to reconcile the idea of the murdering of abortion doctors by those who professed that they appreciated God's creation.

"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord," she murmured softly to herself as the neared the main police precinct in Scranton, with the main holding facility was located.

"Amen," Mulder responded as he pulled into the drive. "What I would like to know is if this Sistrunk was connected to the other two murders in New York and New Jersey, and if so, how he found out about these other two men and if he knew they were connected?"

"What if he doesn't?" Scully wasn't sure where Mulder was going with this little trip.

"He may not know anything about the other two, Scully, but I bet you anything that he's has proved to be a convenient ruse for someone who did, someone who might be able to explain to me how three identical abortion doctors with no past all happened to die the same way, leaving no bodies behind."

Realization finally set in as Mulder parked the car and they both managed to climb out. "You don't think Sistrunk did this?"

"I'm not ruling it out. He may know something about it. But no, I don't think he killed Prince, any more than he killed the other two." As usual, Mulder's mind was already three steps ahead of the case, well past where Scully's more logical mind was dwelling, and he already saw where this was potentially leading.

"So why are we here," she demanded as she followed his long strides up to the station house.

"To see if we can get Sistrunk to tell us who really gave him the information on Prince and his whereabouts." Mulder reached the door first, holding it open for her as she entered. She glared up at him as she stepped inside, shaking her head slowly.

"You really are quite scary sometimes, Mulder."

"Why?" He was bemused by her statement.

"US Marshals are convinced they have this guy nailed on it and you just up and decide he isn't guilt."

"Because he's not," Mulder shrugged as they approached the front desk, each flashing their badges to the officer on duty.

"And you determined this after careful examination of the suspect?" She bit back the sarcastic smile she wanted to shoot him.

"One of these days, Scully, I'll teach you what a hunch is and I'll get you to go with it." Mulder insisted ruefully as his hand moved to her back and propelled her in the direction the desk officer pointed them to. "And…you are going to like it."

Somehow, Scully scowled darkly, she highly doubted Mulder would manage any such thing.


	74. Blind Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully questions Mulder's blind trust in regards to alien conspiracies.

Ambrose Chapel sat on her couch looking perfectly frank and sincere, and that was what bothered Scully as she watched him sip water carefully from one of her glasses. He seemed too eager and willing to aid them, just a little to interested in the same goals they themselves had. In light of the sudden and unexplained death of Agent Weiss in Syracuse on what was a routine questioning on a lead, all of the factors in this weird, strange case of the identical looking, dead abortion doctors was leading to one direct end for Scully. They were being set up and framed for a fall and Ambrose Chapel looked like just the sort of tasty bait Mulder would set upon and take. Already that familiar brightness showed in his hazel-green eyes. Mulder wanted to believe this man, perhaps he already did. She could see the possibilities already playing out, the scenarios for what they might find. Mulder was already willing to jump out the door after this man and follow him to wherever it led, even to his own, professional doom if necessary.

"Mulder, can I see you in the kitchen a moment?" Scully nudged his elbow softly, glancing sideways at the all-too-genial Chapel. The other man didn't seem to be terribly affronted that she was pulling her partner away into secret conversations. Mulder glanced up at her and nodded, unfolding himself from her armchair and following her into her neat, clean kitchen.

She stopped at her empty kitchen sink, turning her back against it, facing Mulder as he leaned his tall frame against her orderly kitchen table. It gave slightly under his weight, scooting back, just an inch. With Mulder it was always best to get right to the heart of the matter. "What are you doing in there, Mulder?"

"What do you mean?" He knew that she was going to open with this line of attack. His question wasn't one of naiveté or confusion; he was asking her why it was she didn't trust this man when he so obviously did.

"What do you know about this Chapel person anyway? Have you checked his story? Does he work for the CIA?"

"Scully, he was skulking outside your front door, I didn't have time to run his name through the NSA database," Mulder's tone was light, but thick with sarcasm. She glared at him as she crossed her arms defiantly in front of her.

"Trust no one, Mulder, remember that? You have admitted you are far to willing to believe anyone who is willing to go along with you and agree to any theory you have."

"He's not agreeing with anything, Scully, he's got information that will help us with an ongoing investigation."

"An investigation that just got grounded by Skinner because neither you or I bothered to follow through with proper procedure before an innocent agent was murdered." She hissed, glancing out towards the living room nervously. She couldn't see Chapel, but she wondered just how much of this conversation the other man could hear.

She continued, glaring pointedly at his mutinous look. "Mulder, has it occurred to you that all of this is just a little too convenient? You receive an anonymous email linking these doctors' together followed up by Agent Weiss's death, and now this convenient CIA agent who wants to tell all. If this doesn't scream 'trap' to you, I don't know what does."

"And you call me the paranoid one," Mulder quipped, but there was no laughter in his face, only grim disappointment. He wanted her to be as excited about this as he was, about what these possibilities might mean.

"What that man is suggesting, Mulder, is that our own government is sanctioning the murder of these men, these clones, because of some secret pact we've made with the Russian government to suppress the facts of their cloning program." She willed him to really listen to the words she was saying, to the real story this man was spewing at them. "No one has ever successfully cloned a human being before. no one has even cloned another mammal. What Chapel is saying is nothing short of fiction, straight out of the pages of a fantasy."

"Scully, you've seen it for yourself, our own government has been working in fields far advanced beyond conventional science. You saw it with Purity Control, with Duane Barry's implants, with that Erlenmeyer flask."

"I don't know what I saw, Mulder," she retorted quickly, cutting him off before he could go any further. "I won't deny that there are things government scientists have been working on that are far more advanced than anything I've found any information about. But they aren't unheard of. Gene therapy, microchip tracking, genetic mutations, these are all things that have been rumored to have been performed successfully within the scientific community. No one has cloned another mammal before and had it survive."

"Would we have known if the Russians had done it in the Cold War?"

"I don't see how a secret like that couldn't get out? Not in the chaos of after the fall of the Soviet government, with all the other secrets that were revealed, the evidence of a clandestine, spy program creating human clones to infiltrate US abortion clinics in the hopes of creating more clones? Listen to the very idea, Mulder, it's science fiction!"

"But it's the only explanation we have on why those men are all identical and all working in the same exact field." Mulder persisted, his jaw fixed stubbornly, unyielding, "it's the most plausible explanation for what is going on, Scully, for why these men are being targeted, and why there are no remains to be found."

"Maybe, Mulder." She had to admit, it was the only theory she heard that did make sense. Convenient how it seemed to fit all of the parameters so neatly, she thought, just the way Mulder liked a hypothesis. "Maybe it does explain it, but do you really believe that it's the truth?"

There was a flash of doubt; so minute she might have missed it if she didn't know him better. "I guess we'll just have to trust this guy long enough to investigate, won't we?"

She sighed, pursing her lips, biting the tender skin just inside. She wasn't going to talk him out of it and the hell she was letting him go alone. "Fine, we'll go, we'll see what this man has to prove to us. But I want it noted something doesn't feel right at all about all of this. I just want you to keep that in mind as we go out there."

"Dually noted," he drawled with more than a hint of sarcasm. "Are we done with our little domestic dispute? Can we go see our guest before he wonders if happy couple have been arguing again?"

She narrowed her eyes at him as he petulantly pushed himself away from her table, pushing it even further out of place as he sulked out of the kitchen and back into the other room without a further word to her. She glared at the back of his head, but knew it would do no good. He was pissed that she was raining on his parade and embarrassed that she was calling him out in front of an informant like this. Let him be, she reasoned, as she angrily grabbed the edge of her kitchen table and pulled it back into its spot defiantly, setting the feet into the areas she knew would align her table just so. Mulder could be such a fucking dick sometimes; she seethed privately, as she followed him back into her living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know about Dolly, but ironically this is just a few short years before Dolly the Cloned Sheep. The show really was at the cutting edge of human capability for the time.


	75. Dead Men Tell No Tales

How was it, Scully wondered to herself, that Mulder could in one breath accuse her of not knowing of what she was speaking regarding a suspect CIA agent, only to have him turn around and ask for her expertise on a body that had already had an autopsy performed on it once, by a qualified medical examiner in Syracuse, New York? She stewed on this ironic fact of life as she reviewed the ME's notes on the body of Agent Weiss. Mulder stood close by, trying not to stare too hard at the figure lying just underneath the white sheet, stiff and cold. A dark, mean, angry part of her wanted to tell him that if he couldn't handle the site of blood and body parts, he better step out now. But she wasn't in the mood for pulling out petty crap on him, not if she ever hoped to get him to listen to reason.

She thought again of their argument regarding Chapel. Mulder waved his background check on the CIA agent in her face this morning, as if that was supposed to quell her suspicions once and for all. She had wanted to be petty then too, remind Mulder that they had both done separate background checks on Alex Krycek when he had come, waving the banner of belief in Mulder's face, and look where that had ended up. But even she couldn't bring herself to be that low.

"There's no penetrating knife or gunshot wounds, no ligature marks or abrasions from strangulation. The toxicological is clean, and the blood work... " She frowned as she looked over the notes from the ME regarding Agent Weiss's blood consistency. "Well, the blood work is strange."

Over her shoulder she could feel Mulder move over and loom, his voice a rough rumble in her ear. "Strange how?"

She tried not to shiver at the invasion into her space, again. "Well, there's evidence of polycythemia, excessive production of red blood cells." She glanced up as Mulder moved from her, around to the other side of Weiss's still covered corpse. "Extreme evidence, the doctor who made this report has it in here that the blood was curdled like jelly, as if something caused the blood to thicken or clot prior to death."

"Do to what?"

Scully wanted to snappishly ask him if he thought she was a mind reader or perhaps possessed X-ray vision to be able to tell, but he'd only be amused by the idea. "Possibly a coagulating agent introduced into the body, but it would've shown up on the toxicological."

Whipping around, he crossed back to her, his mind already trying to fit together the varied pieces of this case. Three identical looking men, all dead with no evidence, one supposed CIA agent who swore that it was all due to Russian Cold War cloning programs, and one dead FBI agent who was killed by something that no one could identify or understand.

"Didn't Agent Chapel say something about these doctors being able to contaminate the blood supply? Couldn't one of those contaminants have been used to kill this man?"

Hell, she had no idea what contaminants the CIA agent was even referring to. "I don't know, Mulder…I…" She thought back to the doctor's apartment they had gone to last night, just before they had chased after the fleeing man, and she had stepped into the acidic, green goo in the alleyway. "There was a doctor's bag I took as evidence from the apartment."

At least one of us was thinking clearly, she mentally added. She hadn't had a chance to review the bag, yet, or its contents. Perhaps there was something in there that might shed light on what it was these doctors were dealing in and just what it could be that had killed Agent Weiss. She could almost see Mulder's request to her to check the contents forming on his lips as through the autopsy bay doors, a younger agent stepped in, looking straight towards Mulder.

"Agent Mulder," he called. Mulder, who had yet to notice him, spun in response.

"Yeah?"

"Assistant Director Skinner has been looking for you?"

Scully couldn't help but shoot him a bit of an "I told you so" look. She just had to give in to waspishness, just once that day.

Mulder ignored it as the man walked out. Judging by the preoccupied look in his eye, he probably didn't even see it. Damn it all.

"Check the bag. See if you can find anything that will connect."

That was the least of Mulder's problems. "Well, Skinner's is going to want to know why you didn't file your report. What are you going to say?"

Not so preoccupied as it turned out. The sarcasm bubbled up to the surface as he grabbed the case file and sauntered for the door. "Just the truth. I got hit by a car."

Somehow, no matter how true that statement was in reality, she highly doubted Skinner was going to buy it out of Mulder.

Damn it all, she swore loudly to no one in particular. This case was becoming thicker and murkier by the minute, and Mulder was determined to dance merrily into hell with it, despite the dangers Scully could see, lurking just over the edge, threatening to take away from them all they had just spent the last five months bringing back. He would throw it all away on some half-assed story about Russian cloning and government plots to kill them. What about his sister? What about her own abduction? What about whatever it was she had been infected with? Would he seriously risk all of that for whatever this CIA informant had to bring them?

Angrily she slammed down the clipboard with Agent Weiss's autopsy results on the cold, steel table in front of her and with a jerking twitch of her right hand she flipped back the sheet, expecting to find the agent's coldly placid face laying there, eyes closed in death. She stopped, cold, her breath suddenly missing as she studied the face of her poor, fallen fellow agent. Weiss's eyes, nose, and mouth were red and swollen, even in death, the skin clearly still abraded by some sort of agent, as if he had died in the throws of an allergic reaction. Puzzled, Scully grabbed the clipboard from the table, flipping through the ME's report again, looking for any tests done on possible allergic reactions or contagions in Weiss's system. Outside of the unidentified agent that had curdled Weiss's blood, nothing stood out as something that would cause this sort of reaction in him. 

But she had seen this reaction before, months before, when Mulder had been tossed out of the white van on the lonely Washington bridge, the night that Deep Throat had died. She swallowed as she thought back to Mulder's description of Dr. Secare, the man who Mulder had been pursuing that night. Mulder swore he had been shot, and that a green, oozing substance had poured out of the man's body. It was that agent that had caused Mulder's eyes, nose, and mouth to swell, as he reacted to a corrosive gas formed when the substance hit the air. A substance that, by its description, sounded eerily like the substance she had found on the ground outside of Doctor Dickens' apartment. The substance she had accidentally stepped in, that had eaten a hole through her brand new pair of shoes. Pieces began to fit into place as she flipped the sheet back up over Weiss. Whatever this abortion doctor may or may not be, she realized, her heart thumping as her mind raced through the possibilities, she knew one thing. The last time this substance had been seen, it was linked back to the strange, as yet unidentified substance known as Purity Control. Which could mean that these doctors weren't part of some Soviet, Cold War experiment, they were part of a US government experiment involving a genetically altered virus, one that the US government was trying to cover up.

Scully grabbed the autopsy notes, and rushed into the changing rooms just off the lab, tearing off her scrubs and pulling back on her street clothes, hurriedly adjusting her suit jacket over her blouse and slipping her high heels back on. She tossed the dirty scrubs in the laundry and grabbed her athletic shoes, and throwing them in the locker she kept in the autopsy bay. From inside she grabbed the one piece of evidence she had managed to grab from Doctor Dickens's apartment, his black bag.

Was there anything in here that could have caused that reaction in Weiss? Was it worth killing anyone over? She shuddered slightly as she looked down at the black leather, wondering. She set it down on one of the long, wooden benches that lined the changing room, opening up the clasp, and looking inside the case, picking up vials and studying test cartridges, all written in a neat, firm black script. Nothing on any of it indicated just what it was used for, outside of testing, and nothing in there bore the words "Purity Control" or even hinted at what it was that strange, green substance could be.

"Damn it," she breathed, slamming shut the bag, latching it again as she studied the address tab that was attached to the bag's handle. It was an address for Dickens, in Germantown, Maryland. Not far away from Washington. Perhaps she and Mulder could possibly even check it out that day. Grabbing the handle, she swung it off the bench as she rushed out of the locker room, her steps rushed as she played through her conclusions in her mind, the connection between what the doctors were working on and the substance they had discovered last spring in the labs in Baltimore. Could the US government have been trying to use stem cells from aborted fetuses in furthering the research on this strange virus? Was the CIA now using herself and Mulder as pawns in a scheme to cover up and hide the evidence of the crimes of someone in the government? Perhaps the US military…but now she wasn't so sure. She had assumed military because of the man who had shot Deep Throat, a man who had a military bearing to himself, but he could have just as easily been CIA. Scully recalled him as she had watched him driving through the rolling hills of Wisconsin, the last time she had seen the man before he was killed by the grieved Sheriff Marzeroski. She had picked him out when they had seen him there, hiding the evidence of the testing on children. Perhaps this all was a part of that? But how…how did all of these seemingly unrelated pieces all connect back to one another?

The door to their shared office was open, and she could hear Mulder's voice speaking inside. Perhaps on the phone? Odd, she thought he had gone to Skinner's office. She rounded the door to find him behind his desk, staring at the phone with an air of distant, worried preoccupation, something she rarely ever saw on her partner's face.

"I didn't find anything much to go on, but we've got an address." She offered hopefully, worried that Skinner had censured Mulder even further for his lack of autopsy evidence.

He didn't seem to hear her at first, rising instead and gathering his overcoat, his briefcase, and patting his pockets as if in search for his keys.

"Check it out if you can," he murmured absently, for once not hesitating on sending her out by herself to do investigative work. Surprised, she watched as he hardly looked at her, rushing for the door without even the barest of glances.

"Where are you going," she called, confused.

"Home," he replied over his shoulder as he whipped around the doorway. She could hear the elevator almost immediately. She blinked at him in puzzlement as she glanced down at the case in her hand and the tag attached to it, and then back up at the door.

Home, she thought? His home? By the sound of the confusion and fear in his voice, most likely not, which meant that he was talking about Greenwich, where his mother lived. For the moment, all thought of irritation with her partner and agitated puzzlement over the case flew out the window as she remembered their all too recent conversation on the mortality of parents. She prayed it was nothing to do with either Mulder's mother or father. Her teeth nibbled fractiously on the inside edge of her bottom lip. No matter what, Mulder would want her to get this research done for when he returned, so that they could further their information for Skinner and close up the report when his family matters were done. She would have to trek out to Germantown herself and see what she could dig up on this Dr. Dickens and his doings and what it have to do with all of the rest of the mysteries that surrounded the X-files.


	76. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully goes off investigating on her own.

The red, flashing numbers on her bedside clock read 5:30. Outside her window, the sky was barely taking on the pearly sheen of dawn's first light, as it outlined the tree just outside. Scully watched as each branch, each leaf came out in stark relief, as slowly, ever so slowly the light grew, and she could make out in pale pastels the various colors and objects of her room. She hadn't slept a wink, not really. Her feverish mind had lain in her soft bed, watching the clock numbers as the ticked off, one after another. She had resisted the urge to get up, to look back out the window outside to see if the van were still there, watching the very window Duane Barry had broken through. She didn't have to look; she knew it was there. She lay as still and as quiet in her bedroom as she could, as if the occupants of the vehicle couldn't see her or sense her if she lay there, quiescent.

What was she going to do? She had tried calling Mulder, but he hadn't returned home from Connecticut or Massachusetts, wherever he was going to see his parents. He wasn't answering his cell phone either, it was off and every call went straight to his voice mail. With no way to reach him, she couldn't share with him the information she had seen the evening before, out in Germantown when she had gone to follow up on the lead on Doctor Dickens. She had found the warehouse, filled with the vats of the same, green substance that had eaten through her shoe and that had killed Agent Weiss. The fact that she had witnessed Agent Chapel destroying the evidence, not trying to gather it to present to the world, confirmed Scully's worst fears. They were being set up to take some fall. But what was it? And could she convince Mulder of this before he made a terrible mistake?

Her alarm sounded shrilly, like glass shattering in her ear. Bolting straight up, she turned off the alarm clock with an angry snap and reached for the phone by her bed. She would call in a personal day to work today. She so rarely took them. She doubted anyone in HR would question it. Perhaps they would just assume that working with Spooky Mulder had driven Scully into a much needed day of rest and wouldn't think to question her story. If only they knew the truth, she shivered, as she crawled into the shower, hoping to warm her suddenly chilled skin. What was she going to do about this situation? She had no doubt that whoever it was outside her window saw her at the warehouse the night before and had followed her. She highly doubted she would have been able to make it into work if they followed her car in. Ghastly visions of horrible accidents filled her mind as she desperately tried to think of alternatives. She couldn't stay inside all day. They could easily grab her here as anywhere. 

No, she had to hide somewhere, find a place close enough to the warehouse that when Mulder finally got her message he could get to her and the evidence easily. But it had to be secluded enough that whoever was following her wouldn't be able to trace her so quickly. And how was she to get there? If she didn't trust her own vehicle, that left public transit. Perhaps that might work. She frowned as she turned off the water and reached outside the circle of her shower curtain for one of her thick, fluffy towels. Public transit would be difficult to track anyone on. If she caught the right bus, dressed inconspicuously, she might be able to effectively hide without anyone noticing.

When had her job description turned into a game of cloak-and-dagger, she fretted, as she rushed out to dry her hair and decide what in her closet looked appropriately bland enough to meld into a crowd. Her work suits would hide in DC but not in Germantown. Jeans and a t-shirt, perhaps, convenient enough that she wouldn't care one way or the other if she lost a pair thanks to whatever the strange, green substance in the warehouse was. Her eyes fell on her work out clothes. She had meant to run this morning anyway. No one would think twice of Dana Scully leaving her house at this hour for a run through Georgetown. She already did it three times a week, sometimes more. And she knew there was a bus that picked up three blocks down, one that if she timed it right she should just be able to catch.

In a rush she dried her damp hair and pulled on her comfortable, warm running clothes, sliding on her running shoes and lacing them up. It was bland enough to hide in a crowd and hard enough to track that anyone trying to find her in a bus terminal or train station wouldn't be able to manage. She ran her cold fingers nervously across her scalp. The hood of her sweatshirt would do to hide her shining mass of copper-colored hair. It stuck out like a beacon wherever she went, no matter how short she was. She still needed something to carry her things in. She didn't want to carry her briefcase. That would look obvious. She wanted something small that couldn't be grabbed. She had a fanny pack, something she hated to admit she owned, but it was a convenience on some of her longer runs. She snagged it, wrapped it around her slim waste, and reached for her cell phone, her badge, and her gun. All three neatly fit inside, along with just enough money to pay for a bus fair, train fair, and perhaps a room once she got safely into Germantown. She would call Mulder once she got in and let him know where she was.

She was out the door when she thought she heard her phone ring. It was hard to tell in the muffle of others noises as her neighbors woke up to greet their various days. She moved quickly out the door, her eyes automatically darting to where the van sat, still, quiet and undisturbed across the street from her window. She immediately glanced around herself, casually, scanning the area in front of her apartment as she slipped her headphones over her ears, jogging in place as if to warm up. She ran no music through the headphones; she wanted to be ale to hear despite them. Tucking them under her hood, she moved quickly in the chill fold of early morning, past the sleepy eyed, yawning commuters all making their initial way to their cars in the what was proving to be a gray, drizzly morning.

Her breath still turned misty in the late-February air, the exercise warming her blood and stretching the muscles still tense from her sleepless night. Her lungs burned slightly as she slowed at the stop sign, just as the large, white city bus trundled through traffic, stopping at the corner. She lithely stepped on board, reaching inside her pouch for the change needed to right on the bus. It had been so long since she had ridden, she hardly knew the correct fair anymore. She took a seat in the back, one she felt was as unobtrusive as any other, smiling politely to the woman across from her and wishing she had thought to bring a book, anything to occupy her on the long trip to Germantown. Somehow she highly doubted she would be able to focus on it even if she had brought one. Besides, she scolded herself, she needed to be aware and keep her eyes out for Chapel or anyone else suspicious. Surreptitiously, she glanced around herself, towards the other patrons of the bus. None looked particularly out of place, and none seemed to cast Scully a second look. Scully reached for her pack, easing her cell phone out of it, dialing Mulder's number as she settled back against the window of the bus, watching the people around her with half an eye. She listened as the ring tone went straight to his voice mail again. Just what was wrong with Mulder's family that he wasn't picking up his phone?

"Mulder, it's me. I just left my apartment and I don't think I've been followed." She paused, hoping she was doing the right thing by this crazy expedition. "I'm going to be staying at the Vacation Village Motor Lodge off the I-90 in Germantown. Now, by the time you reach me, I should have some very important information for you regarding this case." She just needed to get to the warehouse first.

She clicked off the phone and slipped it into her pouch, feeling her service weapon tucked neatly inside there. She was armed, if it came down to that. She hoped it wouldn't. She needed to get samples of whatever it was that Chapel destroyed the night before, get it to a lab, and analyze it. She wanted to know what this substance was, why it was coming out of the bodies of random people, and what about it had killed one FBI agent and seriously maimed Mulder. Better yet, why hadn't it killed Mulder?

She turned her face towards moving buildings outside of the bus, praying that at some point Mulder heard her message and reached back out to her. She wasn't so sure she couldn't handle this case alone.


	77. You Aren't Who You Think You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is confused as to who she is seeing.

Human cloning was impossible, she had told herself. Yet, no matter what she said, no matter how true she thought it was, there were four, identical men sitting in a maximum security facility, the last of the Gregors that Chapel had told her and Mulder about. Whatever else CIA Agent Chapel was, he hadn't been lying about that. Someone had a cloning program and had created these men from it. She just didn't know who it was that ran it. And she wasn't so sure that it had anything to do with spying either.

She stood in the shower of the run down, sad looking room she had taken at the Vacation Village Hotel. At least, she reasoned, it was clean and there was soap in the shower, and the hot water worked out the kinks in her muscles from her long bus, then train ride, followed by the hours of paperwork and phone calls back and forth with the Germantown Police and the FBI. Skinner was less than thrilled with the story she had to tell, of a CIA agent who had led herself and Mulder on a merry chase against four identical men who were being targeted for murder. Still, he had agreed to sign off on the necessary paperwork to get the men in custody. Perhaps, she admitted to herself, he had agreed to it mostly because the request had come from herself and not Mulder. 

She hadn't asked her superior if he had heard anything from Mulder and if everything was all right with her partner back at home.

She dried quickly, rubbing down her body with the scant towel, wishing she had her soft, comfortable pajamas to put on. But all she had were her now grimy, sweat stained clothes she had worn that day and she slipped them regretfully back on as she moved back into the other room, towards the hard but neatly made bed. She glanced at the clock by the nightstand. It read 8:15. Still no word from Mulder and he hadn't managed to knock in the door. She reached for the hotel phone by the bed, thinking to call him yet again, but stopped. No…if there really was a family emergency, if one of his parents were ill, the last think he needed was for her to leave a chain of annoying messages for him to follow back up on. Mulder so rarely ever was called to his family, she wanted to give him all the time he needed.

She would just lay here, watch television, and wait.

When Scully's eyes blinked open again, the clock read 11:21. She frowned, wondering what it was that woke her. She began reaching for the phone, but realized the pounding sound she heard was at her door. Throwing back the covers, she reached for the lamp and got out of bed, her heart pounding in relief as she realized that finally, Mulder had managed to make it.

"Who is it?" She tentatively eyed the pack she brought, where her gun lay.

"Scully, it's me!" Mulder's familiar voice sounded through the wood. The door had no peek hole in it. Instead she opened the curtain at the room's one window to peek out around the corner. Her partner's tall frame was just visible.

"I got your message," he called. Something wasn't right in this scenario. Scully couldn't say for the life of her what that was. Perhaps it was just the sleepy muzziness of her brain, the confusion brought on by the events of the day and the lack of real sleep. Warning bells were ringing loudly in the back of her brain, but she had no real reason for them to be sounding.

She swallowed hard. "Where've you been?" 

She of course knew exactly where Mulder had been. He had been with his parents, either in Greenwich or on Cape Cod, the two places she knew his parents lived. For whatever reason she wanted to hear confirmation from her partner on his whereabouts. Something was strange here. Why hadn't he called? why hadn't he reached out to her before now, to check in with her at least? If he had gotten the message, why hadn't he called her?

Behind her, the fanny pack rang brightly in the stillness of her room. She froze, turning to stare at it in confusion. Her cell phone was so rarely used for anything, mostly work. She gave the number to her mother to use in case of emergencies. Only the Bureau and Mulder should have the number, unless it had to do with the Gregor clones.

"Hang on," she called back towards the door, rushing to grab her cell as Mulder called her name outside. She clicked it on, answering it with her perfunctory "Scully."

"Scully, it's me, where are you?"

She froze, staring blankly at the far wall, her mind stuttering horribly for the briefest of seconds as she tried to comprehend what was going on here.

"Scully, are you there?" Impossibly, Mulder's voice was sounding on the other end of the line. She had just seen him outside her door. he hadn't been on his phone…had he? She strained to listen, but couldn't tell if he was out there on his phone or not.

"Scully, are you there," the voice of Mulder asked again. This time she listened to the other side of the door. The sound wasn't echoed through the simple plywood and pine frame. Her breath froze in her chest as on the other end of her phone she could hear the frantic call of her name.

Behind her she could hear the door opening on its hinges. She thought she had locked it…hadn't she? She swore privately to herself as she glanced over her shoulder slowly, her face carefully schooled as she could manage it. On the other end of the line she could hear the disembodied voice of the man behind her, now panicked, as he demanded to know what was going on.

"No, sorry," she replied evenly, hoping that it was just ambiguous enough a statement to fool one Mulder, but pointed enough to warn the other. She turned off her phone as she turned to the familiar, curious face of her partner, his hazel green eyes wondering as he glanced at her phone.

"Who was that?" He certainly sounded like Mulder and looked like him as well. From the top of his dark, brown hair, to his suit, which gave her pause. Say what you will about Mulder's ties and color schemes, Mulder had one, unspoken vanity in life. He always dressed neatly and impeccably, despite the Spartan, bachelor nature of his lifestyle. Perhaps his inability to tell the difference between green and black on occasions might end up with strange, even disturbing tie patterns, but nothing ever looked off about him. Everything about Mulder looked off now. She could feel it in her bones, from the way he dressed, to the way his eyebrows quirked over his aquiline nose that perhaps was a shade too…perfect if that was the way to put it? It didn't feel right. It didn't feel like the man she knew so well, the man she went to work with everyday. She couldn't put a finger on it, she couldn't really explain it, but she knew, somehow, that whoever this person was he looked very similar to Mulder, perhaps was a passable Doppleganger, but he wasn't Fox Mulder.

"It was a wrong number." She lied. She prayed this stranger didn't notice. "Where have you been, Mulder? I've been trying to get a hold of you."

"I was trying to reach you," he shrugged lamely, with none of the humor or the intensity that marked her partner. "I went by your house, but you weren't there. I got here as quickly as I could."

She hadn't told him to go to her house. And he made no mention of his parents. Mulder would have at least explained that in brief. "Why didn't you call when you got my message?"

"I did call," he protested weakly. "But I couldn't get through."

If Mulder couldn't get through, he'd come barreling into this room, guns blazing, she thought darkly as she moved to slip her phone back into the pack and reached for the gun that she had slipped inside there. With careful precision, she whirled on the tall figure behind her, bringing her gun point blank with his chest.

"Put your hands against the wall," she demanded, startling the man who pretended to be her partner. He blinked at her in shocked confusion as he stared down the barrel of her Sig Sauer, trying to laugh it all off with a soft chuckle.

"Scully, what are you doing?"

"I said put your hands against the wall," she demanded even more loudly, her eyes flashing at this man who would be Mulder, ignoring his wide-eyed confusion and waving him towards the far wall, her gun never wavering as she watched him.

"What's wrong," he continued to plead.

"Do it," she yelled at him angrily, her finger twitching ever so slightly on the trigger of her gun. In a million years she would never want to shoot her partner. She had been put in that position once before, holding a gun on him. This time she knew this man was an imposter and her resolve refused to waver.

"Scully, it's me," he insisted, frowning as he turned his back towards her and placed his hands against the wall, palms flat. Ever so carefully, she came up behind him, her gun remaining fixed on his back.

"I don't know who you are," she finally murmured coldly, the ice in her voice making her heart beat loudly with fear.

"Okay," the man with Mulder's voice insisted. "I'm going to take my left hand and reach into my pocket and get my ID, okay? Just don't shoot me. I got shot once and I didn't much care for it."

She almost faltered then. Mulder had been shot once, in North Carolina. It had nearly killed him. But she paused. Anyone who had access to Mulder's personnel files would know that. Read the records and you would know he had been injured in the line of duty a year ago on the Luther Boggs case.

"I said keep your hands up," she warned as the stranger's left hand began to lower itself.

Without warning, and much faster than she could react, the man who wore her partner's face spun on her, the back of his left hand snapping back to clock her across the cheek, sending her tumbling backwards as his right hand followed it, connecting with her chin. She was so stunned by the violent, physical contact, she flew into the far wall, her head spinning painfully as she crashed into it. She knocked her head against drywall and plaster as she slid down, her breath crushed out of her. Dazed, she stared up at the figure who wasn't her partner, as he walked over to her, blank faced and ambivalent. His hazel eyes, far too cold for Mulder staring down his aquiline nose.

"Where is he," the man demanded.

Panicked, she reached for her gun again, but the man displayed his almost inhuman speed again, grabbing her around her throat, vice like fingers digging into the tender flesh there, threatening to crush her windpipe.

"That was him on the phone, wasn't it?" The man knew that it was Mulder, the real one, calling her. "Tell me where he is."

"I don't know what you are talking about," she croaked, only half-untruthfully. This entire, nightmarish scene confused her, it defied comprehension, but it wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. Almost casually he picked her up by her throat and tossed her up further on the wall, crashing through the glass table there. She groaned and whimpered as shards dug in through her running clothes and her back slammed hard against the wall. She blinked up at the stranger, pain hazing her vision, as before her eyes the features of the man she knew as Fox Mulder melted and changed into a man she didn't recognize. His face was heavier than her partner's, with broad, high cheekbones, and a fixed, detached glare. What disturbed her more than the unemotional scowl on his craggy, hard face was the fact that just a moment before he had looked so very much like her partner. Human beings couldn't manipulate their flesh and bone like that. They couldn't. It was impossible. Her brain tried to scream this reason to her as the man reached down for her again, this time yanking her by her shoulders and casually tossed her head back against the wall. Her last thought, before her brain sunk into terrified unconsciousness, was to wonder why it was she was the one always getting captured by these strange, psychotic men.


	78. Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is captured...again.

The copper taste of blood in her mouth made her tongue feel thick and her mouth water with the effort to get it out. She longed to simply rinse it away, but her captor wasn't exactly the most accommodating type. She watched him quietly from where she sat, once again bound, in the back seat of a large car. The man, and she called him a man for lack of a better term at the moment, had said nothing to her, despite her repeated barrage of questions pointed to him, such as why he wanted Mulder, why was he trying to kill the Gregors and what this was all about in the first place. She had given up her inquiries when it became clear that the man, whoever he was, had no intention of answering her. She had no idea what the man was waiting on. He simply sat in silence. Scully curled in the back seat of the car, her mind running through frantic possibilities on how she could break out of this situation, to get free and call the police. But her eyes would always move to her gun, sitting by the man's hand in the main console between the front seats and she would remember his startling speed and dexterity. 

She sat quietly, waiting. She prayed, silently, that he wouldn't take her again, not to wherever Duane Berry took her. Her head throbbed, as did the side of her face, dried blood on her forehead and cheeks itching horribly. She couldn't reach it to scratch. She didn't think the wound was bad, merely a small cut, head wounds always bled more than they should. Her entire back ached from being slammed into the wall and her jaw was still swollen from being struck. Her mind wandered with idle questions. Was Mulder coming for her? Did he even know she was missing yet? He had to have suspected, he was on the other end of that phone line. Mulder must have gotten to her motel room by now, seen the debris field left. She'd be shocked if Skinner hadn't turned out the whole of the FBI yet on the search.

Still the man waited, quietly sitting in the car, ignoring her.

The clock on the dash was past 12:30 when he finally moved. His broad, hulking shoulders turned in the seat to face her, his unmoving expression pinning her down to the back seat where she curled.

"I want you to call Agent Mulder."

Scully blinked at him in terrified consternation. "How?" She looked about her person as if to remind the man she didn't have her cell phone on her.

"There's a pay phone a block from here," the man replied evenly. "You will call him and tell him that I want an exchange."

She didn't have to ask him what he planned on exchanging. Scully was more curious about who he planned on exchanging her for. "What do you want from him?" Her breath was hard and harsh as she glared at her captor.

"A woman," the man said simply. "Mulder will know who she is. She will have gone to him for protection."

"Why," Scully demanded. The man met her curiosity with an even, silent stare.

"He won't go for it," she lied.

"He will," the man replied. "He won't risk your life."

"What makes you think he'll give over an innocent woman?"

The man said nothing. Instead he turned from her, the conversation clearly done. He opened his door, pulling his large body out of the front seat and rounding the vehicle to the door she had her back against. Carefully he opened it so she wouldn't fall out. He then reached for an elbow and eased her out of the car.

Funny, he hadn't used this much care when he had dumped her in here unceremoniously and handcuffed her arms and ankles. When she was steady on her feet he bent over to unlock the manacles at her ankles and then stood to remove the ones at her wrists.

"I wouldn't try to run, Agent Scully," he warned in his deep, rumbling voice as he stood straight up. Even as tall as Mulder was, this man somehow seemed taller, more massive, with a build that looked more at home on a football field than in the suit he was wearing. "I have your weapon. I will kill you."

Judging by the look in his emotionless eyes, she had no doubt he would either. The last of her resolve was slipping. She could try to fight this man, whatever he was. But she had a feeling it would only end up in her death and Mulder still being forced to give over whatever it was he had. Better to go along for now and hope that Mulder had a plan on the other end to get her and the information out of this.

"All right," she breathed as the man pointed towards the phone booth. She moved her feet cramped from too long in one position. The man fell in behind her. Scully could feel her service weapon trained on her back as she walked. She looked neither left nor right, but moved straight up to the glass and steel booth, glancing back at her captor hesitantly.

"Call him and tell him what I told you. Tell him to meet us at the Memorial Bridge in Bethesda. Give him one hour."

Scully nodded in understanding. "Do you have change for the phone?" She didn't have any change in her pockets and the man had neglected to grab her pack from the room when he had carried her off. The man reached into his long trench coat pocket and pulled out four quarters. More than enough for the phone call she had to make. The metal felt cold against her skin as she wrapped her fingers around it and stepped inside the booth.

She dialed Mulder's home number first, pressing the metal buttons slowly as outside the phone booth the man skulked, pacing back and forth, his cold eyes predatory as he watched her. She swallowed against the taste of blood in her mouth as the phone rang, her tongue running across her dry lips.

"Hello?" Mulder's greeting was strained and short. as she expected he knew, and he wasn't happy.

"Mulder, its me." She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the glass of the booth. She looked like hell. Blood covered the parts of her face that itched and much of it was bruised and battered. Mulder would be even more upset if he could see her right now.

He was quiet for the briefest of moments. Was he alone? Had he called for back up in tracking her? She waited, hoping he had gotten a hold of Skinner or someone as she waited for him to finally answer her.

"Scully, where are you?" He was forcing himself to stay calm, but she could hear the fear and panic underneath the strained placidity.

"I don't know," she admitted. She didn't. When she had awoke, they had been parked, right there, by the phone booth. "I'm…I'm in a telephone booth." She glanced behind her to the brooding figure looming just past the telephone booth. "He's got my gun, Mulder. He says he's going to kill me if you don't give him what he wants."

Mulder's silence rang heavy in her ears. She couldn't tell if this was positive or not, if Mulder knew what the man wanted or was clueless. Her heart thundered in her chest as her teeth bit hard into the tender flesh just inside her bottom lip.

"Well, what does he want?" Mulder finally asked. She glanced back again at the man. He had said Mulder would know.

"A woman who's with you. He says you'll know what I'm talking about."

Another pause. It seemed as if it took the space of a lifetime, of several lifetimes as she waited, her breath caught in her throat as her teeth cut into the flesh hard enough to draw even more blood into her mouth. "All right, tell him we'll negotiate."

Perfect FBI tactics, Scully thought ironically, but at the worst time. Mulder had no idea that this man meant what he said and had no intention to play by the Bureau's rules of hostage exchange. "He doesn't want to negotiate. He says he wants to make a trade."

Another pause. She could almost hear Mulder swearing to himself as he realized he couldn't hold out anymore against this. "All right," he ground out in frustration. "Let me speak to him."

"He wants you to be at Memorial Bridge at Bethesda in one hour." The man nodded as he entered the booth, reaching for the receiver switch.

"Scully, I need more time!" She could hear Mulder's frantic voice on the other end, pleading. "I need more time than that!"

"Mulder," she began, but already her captor's fingers firmly pressed down the switch, cutting off Mulder's voice. Scully clung to the receiver, feeling suddenly lost and naked without the comfort of knowing her partner was on the other end of the line. Now she was alone again, her eyes wide as they met the empty gaze of the man.

"We will go there and we will wait," he said, as if he were discussing the weather. Carefully he removed the receiver from her now numb fingers and hung it back on the hook.

"It's time to go," he said, grabbing her elbow in fingers so hard she wondered if they were made of steel. Whatever he was, she knew he had no qualms in hurting her if he needed, at least enough to subdue her, if not kill her. She silently followed as he took her back to the car.

Please, please, Mulder, she thought, if there was ever a time for him to play by FBI rules, to call in the cavalry and not do anything stupid, this was it. What was it that this woman had that this…thing so wanted? What did it have to do with the events involving the Gregors and the warehouse in Germantown? And why was it so important that this shape-changing creature was sent to capture her in exchange? What had Mulder gotten them into this time?


	79. The Exchange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully realizes just who the mystery woman is.

The Memorial Bridge loomed ahead in their headlights. Scully felt her insides churn as she saw a car sitting still, waiting in the darkness. She thought she could see through the windshield to her partner's grim face. At least, she thought darkly, she knew this was indeed Mulder. She glanced sideways to the man who had been her captor, watching him with uneasy hesitation. He had said little since her phone call, merely driving to a spot overlooking the bridge enough to see when Mulder's sedan pulled up and parked in the middle of the bridge. She had to laugh to herself in her private hysteria. What was it about this Purity Control and all the conspiracies surrounding it that seemed to like focusing on exchanges on bridges? It sounded so very Cold War, East Germany, people meeting in the dark to have exchanges of people, except this time instead of her sitting alone in a car, terrified, with the product to be exchanged for Mulder's life, it was now her turn. Who would be shot and killed this time? It was like a horrible remake of a bad movie. She could still feel Deep Throat's blood coating her fingers, hear his gasping breath in her ear. All of this for what, she wondered as the car came to a stop. A Russian cloning program? A strange, extraterrestrial virus? Was it all linked? And what did this mysterious woman she was being exchanged for know about it?

The man didn't move. He watched as slowly Mulder got out of the opposite car, grim stoicism lining his face. Moving to the car, his eyes met Scully's through the windshield for the briefest of moments, silently asking her if she were all right. The man beside her got out of the car, her gun in his hand as he rounded to her side. Effortlessly he opened the door and reached inside for her, yanking her out by her shoulder, the muzzle of her gun pressing coldly against the skin of her temple. Her feet stumbled slightly beneath her as the man forced her to stand in front of him.

Mulder stopped dead, eyes widening briefly with fear. "Scully?"

"Bring her out." The man's deep, raspy voice rumbled authoritatively through the chill surrounding the darkened bridge. Mulder stared at him, clearly torn as to what to do. His eyes slid to hers for the briefest of moments before he turned back to his sedan. Inside, Scully could see the profile of someone, a woman. Quickly she got out and moved over to her partner's side. She wasn't anyone Scully recognized from the Gregors. She was only slightly taller than Scully herself, with dark, curly brown hair, and a familiarity about her that Scully couldn't place. Her eyes met Mulder's as some sort of silent communication passed between the two. The woman nodded and then turned towards herself and the bounty hunter, footsteps sounding against the pavement. The woman stopped, just a foot away from Scully. Her hazel green eyes met hers reassuringly. Scully wished she could feel the same.

"Step close. Right up close." The man rumbled at the woman, fear crossing her stoic face for the briefest of moments, but she did it anyway. With the disturbing quickness he possessed, he pushed Scully away, so hard she nearly stumbled as his hand shot out for the other woman. Without thinking or looking back, Scully ran towards Mulder, who hardly looked at her as she came to a breathless halt beside him.

"Scully, you all right," he asked tightly as he watched the other pair.

"Yeah.' Her reply was automatic, but she was lying. Her insides felt like water and she hadn't realized till that very moment just how terrified she had been. Mulder's eyes cut sideways at her; skeptical as he tried to keep an eye on the woman he had just given up.

"Yeah?" Even then he could see through her facade.

"I'm okay," she murmured with more confidence than she felt. She glanced back at the man who had captured her and quickly got into the car, well out of the action and out of the line of fire should Mulder have arranged for any FBI involvement. The minute she did so, the man put her gun away, but he still kept one of his massive, muscular arms firmly wrapped around the throat and shoulders of the woman that had changed places with her.

Who was she, Scully wondered as they stood there for a long, pregnant moment. The woman once again met Mulder's gaze and something else passed between them. She knew because she could see Mulder tense, as if to protest, as the woman whirled in the man's arms, raising something that Scully couldn't see. They struggled, briefly as Mulder's hand went for his weapon. The taller, stronger man was easily able to overcome her, pinning her hand down and grabbing her forcefully again.

"There's no way out," Mulder called forcefully to the struggling pair, his weapon raised. "We have both sides of the bridge covered. Now let her go!" He began crossing the expanse of bridge between the two.

From somewhere above where they sat, a shot rang out, tearing through the night, causing the tall man to stagger, his arms still firmly around the woman. Scully watched in sickening horror as they teetered and then fell against the side of the bridge, the man's heavier weight dragging them both over the railing, plunging down to the rushing, freezing cold river below. Before she could even register what was going on in front of her, Mulder had crossed the space to where they stood, frantically looking over the side.

It wasn't the fall the pair took that sickened Scully as she heard her partner yelling to the frozen water below. It was the name he was calling. Samantha.

Realization hit her as if she had been the one to plunge into the icy waters below, her heart dropping into her stomach as it occurred to her why it was the woman with the curly, dark hair looked so very familiar to her. She'd seen that woman's childhood photos a million times in the last two years. She had the same color eyes as her brother, the same piercing stare that communicated so many things in just a single look. She should have realized it, but in those terrified moments when she had switched places with the woman she hadn't realized it, had been too frightened to pay attention. Now Mulder stood at the railing of the bridge, screaming his sister's name into the swirling, dark depths below. And it was her fault, Scully realized as tears threatened to break through the careful reserve she had built about herself these last few hours, the steely will she had thrown up in the hope of getting out of this situation in one piece. She had foolishly gone to Germantown again, had tried to handle this entire situation by herself, without Mulder, and what had it led to?

All around her other agents appeared, rushing to the scene as Mulder frantically called for assistance. There were people ordering for paramedics, dive teams, orders flying fast and free around her. All she could do was sit in the car and watch Mulder's anguished face as the one thing he had looked for, prayed for, searched for all these years floated down the river in the arms of a creature that defied everything that Scully understood about the physiology of human beings. He let his sister go in exchange for her. Why? He gave up the one thing he wanted in the world to get her back. It didn't make sense to her. A million times over Scully would have never put that choice before Mulder, would have rather have taken the sacrifice in exchange for that. She had come back from death before this, all for the sake of Mulder's quest, and he had thrown that all away for her. She felt the sudden urge to vomit, but couldn't bring herself to even open the door to bother. She didn't have to. Someone else opened it for her.

"Agent Scully?" Skinner's voice was rough with concern, as he looked her over, his dark eyes focusing on the blood covering her face. "Are you all right?"

"That was Samantha Mulder that fell over the bridge, wasn't it?"

"So she said," Skinner acknowledged, though not completely, Scully noticed. She was too stunned to probe further into the questions in her supervisor's words. She thought of the man who went over the bridge with Samantha, the man who had looked like Mulder but wasn't him. The cold wind from off the river suddenly tore through her running clothes and she shivered slightly in the breeze.

"We have paramedics coming. I want you to go to the hospital," Skinner ordered firmly.

"I will sir, but I have to speak to Mulder," she insisted, climbing out of the car on wobbly legs. Skinner noticed, and grimacing, reached a hand out for her elbow.

"Scully, you should stay put."

"I need to talk to Mulder," she insisted as she moved through the throng of agents now on the bridge to the one that stood transfixed to the spot where his sister had disappeared. He had out his flashlight, its dim light scanning the water below and the two banks beyond. Nothing moved.

"Mulder!" She managed to stumble beside him without completely losing her dignity. Skinner followed close behind, as if to catch her if she did manage to fall. She wasn't going to, not if she could help it.

"She's got to be somewhere, not far," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone in particular. It broke her heart to see him like this, so lost.

"Mulder, why didn't you tell me she was Samantha," she asked softly, unable to hide the despair she felt in that moment. He paused, turning to look up at her, as if he just noticing she was there beside him. It took him moments to register who she was. When he did his frowned darkened even more deeply.

"What did he do to you, Scully?" He reached a finger up to the dried blood on her cheek.

"Nothing, Mulder, nothing more than any other suspect might do," she tried to assure him. Though frankly, the large goose egg she knew was forming on the back of her skull had more than likely given her a concussion, and was adding to the already queasy feeling, compounded by the truth of who the woman was. She had to explain it to him, she reasoned, had to tell him why it was that she of all people had gotten herself into this mess and had cost him the one thing he wanted the most in this world.

"That man, Mulder….I…I thought he was you," she insisted, remembering how the man had looked like Mulder, even sounded like him, but hadn't quite been him. "I didn't know, not till you called."

"I know," he replied distantly. Was he angry with her? Did he blame her for what just happened?

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, but he shook his head, eyes flickering to Skinner behind her.

"Sir, she needs the hospital. Can you get her there?"

"Paramedics are on the way," Skinner reassured him. In the distance, Scully could hear the whine of sirens.

"Go get looked at, Scully. I can't have you hurt, too, because of this." Mulder turned from her and moved to the other side of the bridge, the downriver side, where already agents were combing the banks with flashlights. Down the road that led to the bridge, Scully could see the bright, flashing lights of oncoming police and ambulance. Skinner's hand moved immediately to her elbow, gently guiding her towards the oncoming vehicles.

"Sir, the search," she began weakly, knowing he would ignore her.

"I'm ordering you to go to the hospital, Scully. You do no one any good till they at least take a look at you and make sure your fine." His hard face was firm, but there was a surprising amount of worry in his tone. "Mulder didn't do all of this just to have you collapse on him now."

She stared up at her boss's inscrutable gaze and nodded slowly. As the ambulance pulled up, Scully went to it, patiently sitting through the ministrations of the paramedics there. She watched quietly as search and diving teams made their way down the bank to the river below. They were looking for Samantha Mulder, or at least the woman who said she was Samantha Mulder. Skinner had his doubts and Scully couldn't help but allow those doubts to niggle at her, even as her guilt threatened to break her into pieces. Whether she was or wasn't, Mulder had believed she was. And he had willingly allowed his sister to put herself in danger like that to get back his partner. Why?

Her head swirled and spun, like the river below as she allowed herself to be taken by ambulance away from the scene, away from the chaos, and away from Mulder's heartbreak. She hoped to hell they found something. She didn't think she could live with herself if they didn't.


	80. Samantha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully discovers that Samantha Mulder wasn't everything her brother thought she was.

How long had he been standing at that railing? Hours? Had he moved from the time the ambulance had carried her off? Had he even noticed she had gone? Scully's felt her stomach lurch painfully from the combination of nerves, worry and medication they had fed her at the hospital. She shouldn't be up, they told her, she should be resting. But she couldn't sit by at the hospital knowing that Mulder was on that bridge, searching desperately for the woman who he thought was his sister. Had she really been the long, lost Samantha Mulder? They had no way of knowing until the body was found. 

The body. She shivered. A corpse that she would be asked to dissect, to run tests on and to study. Mulder would want a DNA test of course, just to ensure to his everlasting horror that this was the sister he had spent his lifetime searching for. Something in her rebelled at being the one to have to break that to him, to break his heart like that, if she was his sister. Skinner's hesitation from the night before hadn't left her. Their boss had doubts, though Scully couldn't say why. Perhaps there was something that their boss had seen that drew his suspicion, or perhaps it was just in his nature, as an assistant director in the FBI, to question everything. Skinner knew many secrets, of that she didn't doubt. Why in particular did he doubt Samantha's identity?

The Memorial Bridge was still covered with police cars and people, the road blocked by Maryland State Patrol keeping all other traffic away and detouring it around the site. They stopped the sedan she was in until the agent sent to fetch her from the hospital flashed his FBI badge. The police waved them through silently as Scully searched the bridge for the lonely figure of her partner. As she had expected, Mulder was standing in the very place she had left him the night before. He hadn't looked as if he had moved at all. The icy wind whipped at his dark hair, and tore at his overcoat, but he hardly seemed to notice as his gaze fixed on the work of the dive teams dragging the river below. The car stopped and she stepped out, wondering what she could even say to him to make any of this better. Was he so certain then that this was indeed his sister? 

She came up on him without him even flinching. "Mulder?"

"You should be in the hospital, Scully," he replied without looking up. She moved to his elbow, glancing over the side where men were diving under the fast moving waters, while teams with dogs searched the brush on the river's banks.

"I was discharged an hour ago and I asked to come here." She hesitated, almost afraid to ask her next question. "Have they found anything yet?"

"Nothing yet." His anguished eyes glanced up to hers with vain hope. "You think she could've survived?"

Something inside of Scully broke then, just a little, for the man standing beside her. All the belief and faith he had harbored for all of these years was tied up in the fate of this one woman who may or may not be his sister. She realized it wasn't her partner, Mulder, who was asking her this, but instead a twelve-year-old boy named Fox who wanted to believe more than anything that one day his baby sister would come home to him.

"Maybe." Scully found herself hedging. She didn't want to say no, she didn't want to have to be the one to say it. "But the water is thirty-six degrees." It was February in Maryland, she thought. Samantha Mulder would have died within minutes if she hadn't drowned. There was a chance, of course, she had climbed to safety, but she would have been located hours ago if that had been the case.

"Well, maybe she went into hypothermic shock." Mulder rambled, his mind playing through all the hopeful possibilities in order to deny the one possibility he couldn't actually live with. "I've heard about people who have lived after being stranded in water like this, eight to ten hours."

It was possible, Scully thought, but so very unlikely. It killed her to see him like this, so lost, and so determined to deny the possibility that was looking more and more like it was the truth. "Mulder, why didn't you tell me on the phone that it was her?" That question had plagued her from the moment she heard him scream his sister's name into the darkness.

He refused to meet her eyes. "I couldn't tell you." His jaw worked quietly, his shoulders sagging.

"Why not?" She knew why not, but she didn't want to believe he would make such a horrible choice.

"'Cause you'd never let me go through with it," he replied simply. It was true. She would have never let him give Samantha up, would have demanded he think of something else. Perhaps she would have tried something else, much more drastic. And perhaps she would have ended up dead because of it.

Skinner's doubt crept back to her. It was a doubt she was certain their boss hadn't brought up to Mulder. But she had to. He needed to consider this was a possibility. "Are you sure that it's your sister?"

The words fell like ice between them. Shocked, Mulder turned to stare at her, as if disbelieving that she of all people would suggest any such thing.

"Why would you even question me on that," he demanded, his voice as harsh and brittle as the wind.

"Because, back at the motel, Mulder..." She paused, waving a hand helplessly. How could she even explain this to him? "It was you, but…but it wasn't you."

His eyes flashed and she knew he wanted to fling all sorts of angry retorts at her. But it was Scully, the one person who understood what this meant to him the best. He only shook his head defiantly and turned away from her.

"It was her," he shot back, striding to his car. It hadn't moved an inch either since the night before and sat in the exact same place he had left it. He flung the door open angrily as she followed him.

So many questions, she thought, so many things that weren't explained, and he was holding on to his certainties. "Well, then who was that man and what does he…"

"He's an alien,' Mulder shot back. He didn't even flinch as he said it. It occurred to her that he actually believed it. 

This was so unreal it wasn't even funny. Morphing men who were really aliens, and Mulder's long lost sister now dead in order to save her life. Her frustration with the last few days boiled over in words that were much harder than she really meant them to be. "Is that what your going to tell Skinner?"

Mulder almost laughed…almost. A sad, despairing ruefulness pulled at his full lips as he finally met her eyes, looking empty, depleted and lost. "Telling Skinner was the easy part. Now I got to tell my father."

He stepped inside of his car without even a goodbye, turning on the engine and pulling away. It finally occurred to Scully just why Mulder had been called home the other evening. Samantha had arrived and his parents knew about her. Oh God, she breathed, his poor mother would have seen her long lost daughter, his father would have been reunited with her. And now she was gone, lost in the waters below. All because of Scully and her reckless act in pursuing the Gregors all on her own. If she hadn't been standing in the middle of the bridge among a throng of her fellow agents, she would have burst into tears. 

But she didn't have the luxury for that here, not now. Grimly she felt the lump on the back of her head, as waves of nausea made her face pale several shades. She took deep, long breaths of cold air, bracing herself. If she had been foolish enough to cause the death of her partner's long lost sister, she reasoned, the least she could do was to stay here till the bitter end and wait till they found evidence of Samantha's body. She glanced along the bridge, towards a grizzled man in a heavy jacket, a walkie-talkie up to his lips, eyes focused on the action below. With quick, jogging steps she crossed to him, and waited till he acknowledged her with a harried glance.

"I'm Agent Scully." She introduced herself, feeling conspicuous without her gun and her badge. "Have you had any luck with finding a body?"

"None yet. We'll keep searching," the man offered her his large, rough hand. "Names Lawrence, they called me up from DC to do the search. If there's anything to find, we'll get it. It may take us a bit. The weather's been mild for winter and the snows are melting, making the river run faster than normal this time of year. Your two bodies might be further downriver than we anticipated."

Scully's throat caught at the impersonal nature of the word 'bodies'. "Agent Mulder has left the scene for now, I'll be on hand should anything come up. Let me know."

"Right," Lawrence assured her with gruff professionalism, his steel gray eyes inquisitive as he glanced back to where Mulder had been standing vigil. "Mulder there, he said the one of the victims was his sister. That right?"

Scully didn't know how to respond. "It's thought that she was, yes."

"Poor bastard," the man shook his head. "I hope we find her."

"Me too," Scully murmured as she looked over the side of the bridge, down to the swirling waters below.

For three hours she stood in the cold of early morning, the dim rays of winter sunshine barely cutting through the numbness she felt in her feet and hands. She had procured a coat from some sympathetic agent, worried for Scully's health in the cold with a mild concussion and lacerations on her head. Thankful, she had buried her hands deep in the pockets and had paced the length of the bridge again and again, waiting for word from one of the teams on something, anything.

"Agent Scully!" Lawrence called to her, waving her over as he nodded towards one team two hundred yards down river. "I think they found something."

Without even questioning it, she bounded down the slippery embankment, her athletic shoes easily climbing over roots and slippery mud. The team of divers was pulling a raft of sorts with a sodden bundle of fabric that looked eerily like the clothing she had seen Samantha wearing the night before. The bundle didn't move and none of the dive team looked particularly hopeful. When they flipped over the body so she could see the face, she stared at it numbly. For a long moment she studied the cold, waxen features of the woman who swore she was Mulder's sister. She had his chin, his high cheekbones, but not the shape of his eyes. She was a delicate, pretty woman, and as mysteriously as she had wandered back into her brother's life, she was now gone.

This phone call was going to hurt, she realized as she automatically reached for her cell phone, watching as the team carefully raised the body out of the frigid waters. She ignored the feeling of dread curdling inside of her as she punched Mulder's number automatically and waited the eternal moments as the phone rang on the other end. When he picked up, she almost couldn't go through with it. Her throat tightened horribly as he ground out his last name in a single snap.

"Mulder," she finally managed raggedly. "It's me."

She had expected to hear silence on the other end or perhaps fearful questioning. She didn't expect Mulder to plunge on, without a second thought, with the sort of animated excitement he usually reserved for breakthrough leads on cases. "Scully, she left a path in case we got separated. I think she's alive."

Her shoulder's slumped as she watched the dive team pull Samantha off the raft and onto a medical gurney that had been carefully lowered down the steep embankment. How could she tell him this?'

"Mulder, I think you should come back as soon as you can."

He paused now, that ugly, horrible silent kind, the one she had originally expected. "Why? What did you find?"

She watched as the team strapped down the lifeless remains to the gurney. This was going to kill him. "We just pulled her body out of the river."

There was silence on the other end of the line, a long, horrible, heavy silence.

"Mulder, I'm sorry," she murmured quietly, not sure what else she could possibly say to make any of it better.

"Are you sure?" His voice was so meek and lost on the other end.

She wanted to say no. She wanted to say she wasn't even sure if this woman was really Samantha. "Yeah."

She sighed as she was met with further silence on the other end of the line. She could feel Mulder's guilt penetrating the space between his cell phone and hers. Scully know without looking at him that he blamed himself for this, something she wished he wouldn't. This never would have come to this point if she had only waited for him to get back to her.

"You know," she began helplessly. "Whatever you're feeling, you can't blame yourself."

She could hear him exhale on the other end of the line. She had a feeling her words had little to no effect on him.

"What about a second body," he slowly asked. "Did you find a second body?"

The dive team, assisted by other agents on scene began the sad task of carry Samantha's remains on the gurney up the hill. She watched as they carefully struggled in the soft, wet dirt.

"No, not yet," she replied. She wished they had. She wanted to know what this man, this thing, was.

"I'll be there as soon as I can." He cut off, leaving nothing but dead space on her phone. Scully stopped, staring at her display mutely as above her the agents carefully eased the gurney up the bank and towards the waiting ambulance on the bridge. A part of Scully had wanted so badly for them to find Samantha, or the woman claiming to be her, alive and well. She had wanted it for Mulder's sake, she knew that, but she also wanted it for her own. Scully had meant what she said when she told Mulder it wasn't his fault. If anything, it was hers. And it killed her that her partner had now not only lost his beloved sister once, but now twice. How in the world could she even begin to say she was sorry for something like this?

She crawled back up the embankment and up towards the bridge, where paramedics began lifting the body into the back of the ambulance. She watched as the worked, wondering how it was Mulder's father took the news that the daughter he had thought returned to him was now dead forever. What had Mulder said to him? What had his father thought? Her mouth went dry as she thought about it, fearing just what sort of conversation had gone on between father and son. Mulder had said they weren't particularly close. She wondered if the elder Mulder blamed his son for the tragic events of so long ago. It could account for Mulder's overwhelming sense of guilt.

"Agent Scully!" A frantic, shrill voice called for her from the back of the ambulance and she turned towards it without thinking. Two agents were running towards her, horrified looks on both of their faces.

"There is something you need to see!" Onne of the agents urged her over to where they were loading Samantha's body. "The body we pulled from the water, something strange is happening."

Running after the pair she skidded to a halt by at the doors of the ambulance, flinging one open to look at Samantha. She stared at the face that had looked so eerily similar to her older brother's. What should have been features frozen in death had somehow began to melt and bubble into a slimy, green paste. It began to grow and spread, like a demented school science experiment, the entire face and skull fizzling and bubbling as it started to cave in, the flesh and bone inside being eaten away by whatever the contagion was. The two other agents gasped, looking on in disgusted fascination. She neared the gurney slowly, studying what had been Samantha Mulder's face. Her eyes stung slightly as she neared it, and she backed away, realizing in a heartbeat just what the chemical was.

"Get back. Seal off this ambulance, and get it Bethesda Naval Hospital. I don't want anyone near this until its been analyzed, do I make myself clear?" She barked, turning to the other agents. "I want a hazmat team there to meet the ambulance. I'll get on the line myself and call in tests." Without a thought to the terrified, confused looks on the agents' faces, she reached for her phone and began dialing the Naval medical facility. She didn't want a single person to get too near this agent. If she was right, this was the same thing that had killed Agent Weiss and had seriously maimed Mulder. Why was it oozing out of Samantha Mulder then?

Her mind flashed to the image of green ooze in the alley as they chased one of the Gregor doctors. The CIA Agent, Chapel had been standing over it. She hadn't given the slime a second thought until it had eaten through her shoe. But they hadn't been able to find that doctor again, not that precise one anyway. What if this substance was secreted by the clone beings, she wondered? What if it was a defense mechanism should they be injured or killed? If so, why was it so very deadly to humans? And why was it that it only manifested itself in Samantha after she was pulled out of the depths of the river?

 _Holy hell_ , she breathed, as she stared at the back of the ambulance. It had manifested itself in Samantha. Which meant that whoever or whatever this woman was, she wasn't Mulder's sister at all. She, like the Gregors was a clone.

What in the hell did all of this mean?


	81. Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully begins to piece together part of the puzzle.

Mulder was just finishing the last of his paperwork as Scully rushed into his room, frantic as he glanced up at her mildly.

"I came as soon as I heard, are you all…" She got no further before he rose from the bed and nodded, stopping her outpouring of worried words with a grim smile. His face was still covered with soot, his tie hanging limply, untied around his now filthy shirt collar.

"Whoever said smoking killed you?" He grabbed his suit coat from a chair nearby. "I'm fine, Scully, I'll just have a nasty cough for a few days. Lots of water and keep out of burning buildings, I should be fine."

Scully didn't quite believe him. She stopped him as he tried to step out of the room, glancing him up and down as he stood, impatiently under her scrutiny.

"Done, Dr. Scully?" He smirked, pushing past her into the hallway.

"You could have gotten yourself killed." She was satisfied for now that nothing else was wrong with him. He shot her a pointed glare as he moved through the maze of empty hospital beds and equipment in the Good Samaritan Hospital ER.

"You get to be the pot this time, you're the short one." He moved towards the discharge desk, handing the papers over to the woman behind it and waiting for his own copies. "How's that concussion feeling after fourteen hours on your feet?"

She hadn't told him she had a concussion. Her eyebrows shot up as he accepted the copies, folding them up and stuffing them in the pocket of his trench coat. "Skinner." He murmured in response to her unasked question.

"I'm fine, Mulder."

"You should be home," he insisted stubbornly as she held the hospital door open for him.

"So should you," she pointed out. He seemed to ignore her.

"Thanks for coming and getting me," he sighed. "My car is still out at the clinic."

"I'll take you to it," she offered, leading the way to where her own vehicle was parked. It had been a strange, disturbing, depressing seventy-two hours. She had hardly had time to catch her breath, to analyze just what was going on. Clones, substances, Mulder's sister, morphing men, her head spun with it all and it wasn't just because of the lump that still sat firmly on the back of her head.

She unlocked the passenger side door of her car, allowing Mulder access as she rounded to her side. It was so unusual to have him in the passengers seat. He usually preferred to drive, it was hard for him to just sit still in a car and behave himself. Driving gave his restless mind a focus. "Can you direct me there?"

"I think so," he nodded, frowning as he looked around. "I was out of it when they brought me in."

"They said you were raving about other women in the building." Scully glanced at him briefly as she began to back out of her parking space. "They didn't find anyone else there."

He nodded silently as jaw clenched and unclenched, but he didn't say anything.

"The building was burned, just like the others," she said. "Were there more clones? Clones of Samantha?"

His head snapped to face her, hazel-green eyes wide with surprise. "How did you…"

"The body of the woman you thought was your sister began dissolving once we got it out of the freezing water. I am having samples taken right now at Bethesda, with a full HAZMAT team in tow. It looks as if the substance, whatever it is, loses its full potency shortly after contact with the air. You have to be standing directly near it right when it hits for its effects to have as deadly an effect."

Mulder blinked at her in confusion, clearly lost. She had not gotten the chance before any of this to explain to him all of the information she had pieced together thus far.

"The substance in the alley that melted my shoes, it matched the substance that you described last year as pouring out of Dr. Secare's wounds when he was shot. I remembered what you said about it, what it did to you. It matches the effects on Agent Weiss, all except the blood coagulation. That was a symptom which you didn't personally display."

Mulder's dark eyebrows knit together in thought. "Perhaps I wasn't exposed to it as long?"

"It could be. That same substance was found consuming the body of what we believed was your sister. What I think happened is that the other night, in the alley, while we were chasing the subject, Agent Chapel killed the doctor. The puddle I stepped in was the same substance that you saw on Dr. Secare and I saw on Samantha." She was loathe to call the woman that. She was no more Mulder's real sister than the strange; shape shifting man had been Mulder.

"The woman was a clone," Mulder murmured with heartbreaking passivity, his expression completely stoic as he repeated it. "She was part of an experiment created to hybridize human and alien DNA. The abortion doctors were cloned using a mixture of the two kinds of DNA in the hopes they could easily slip into normal society. They took on the guise of the clinics to have better access to human DNA."

Scully's knee jerk reaction to news like this was to tell him it was impossible, something straight out of fiction. But after the week she had been having, the things she had seen, she wasn't about to discount any of it right now. Perhaps later, when she truly understood what was going on? "How did you find this out?"

"Samantha, or the woman that I thought was her."

"Mulder, the tanks I saw in Germantown, they had other clones, like the Gregors. Chapel or whatever he was, he destroyed the evidence. There was more of this substance in there, the same substance that killed Weiss." She pursed her lips tightly as she thought about it, about what Mulder said, Purity Control, and all of the strange pieces and threads that had been left for them since the death of Deep Throat. "What if that virusm Purity Control, what if that is what they are using in their hybridization process?"

"What do you mean?" He didn't discount her, but it was clear he wasn't following her line of thought. He lacked the medical background to see where this was going.

"No matter what Purity Control is, Mulder, alien DNA or an engineered virus, clearly the government is using it for something. They've been running tests for years on it. The first place we encountered Purity Control was in Dr. Berube's lab. He was involved in the experiments that involved Dr. Secare, correct?"

"Yes." Mulder's eyes narrowed as he fit the pieces she presented to him into his own narrative of what was going on.

"This Purity Control is a virus, Mulder. Viruses are either made from DNA or RNA. They replicate by taking over existing cells and infecting them, creating a new cell. This process occurs again and again until the human immune system shuts down the virus. Then it tells the remaining cells in the body to look out for this specific virus, so that in future, the virus won't be able to infect them."

"And that is how Purity Control virus was used in these clones to begin the hybridization process." Mulder began to see the same threads she was. "They infected cloned humans with the virus to meld human and alien DNA together through simple cellular division. Instead of creating strict virus cells, it is changing the clones from being completely human to partially alien."

"What if they were already born that way?" She remembered the tanks she saw Chapel destroy. "What if they are engineered with this foreign DNA in their system from inception? Conventional science hasn't reached the level of sophistication, that doesn't mean that military science hasn't. Look at the Manhattan Project, others that were kept secret for years before they were used in war."

"So you think the military is trying to hybridize humans and aliens?"

"We don't know that it is aliens. It could be an engineered virus."

"You said it yourself that it is extraterrestrial."

"Only because nothing like it has been seen on this planet." she had tried, repeatedly, to get this through to him. "What I think is going on, Mulder, is that the government has created a virus that they are using on human test subjects. The clones are only a part of something much bigger."

"Samantha said that the clones are part of efforts to establish a colony here, Scully. A colony of people who naturally carry this virus in their DNA structure. Their work in the abortion clinics was simply to gain access to further unique types of DNA, so they would stop being identical."

For a brief, hysterical moment, Scully wondered what people like Calvin Sistrunk and his pro-life group would have to say about something like that, should it come to light. "Mulder, just what have we gotten ourselves into?" Her voice sounded so small and it startled her. She was never cowed, by anything. But this case, what they discovered, it struck at everything she knew and believed as a scientist to be true. It terrified her to the core of everything she was. 

She could smell smoke and see ash on cars as he pointed towards what amounted to a gutted out building. Across the street sat his familiar sedan, covered in soot, but otherwise unharmed. She pulled up beside it silently, stopping the car beside his driver's side door. He glanced at it in long thought, before turning to her, reaching a hand for one of hers on the steering wheel. "I shouldn't have told you to go to Germantown by yourself." 

"You didn't know it would end up that way. Hell, neither did I." She was angry with herself, that she allowed herself to be put in that position and doing the very thing she always accused Mulder of doing, running off and doing things alone. "I know, Mulder that…that she wasn't your sister, really." She couldn't meet his eyes, she didn't want him to see all the guilt that she had felt, all of the remorse. "I'm sorry I made you choose."

His fingers briefly closed around her own, before letting go and cutting off the contact between the partners. "I said I'd always come for you, Scully. I wouldn't leave you behind."

"But you thought she was your sister," Scully insisted. "You put her in danger like that."

"She offered herself," Mulder replied quietly. "She knew why it was you were taken. She had shared with me the information, she had done what she set out to do."

"But what if she had been your real sister and that man had demanded her in exchange for me?" 

Surprisingly, there wasn't any hesitation or conflict as she met his steady, grave gaze. "I would have moved heaven and earth to get you back."

Scully wanted to smile in return, but found she couldn't. She managed to nod as she watched him climb slowly out of her car.

"See what you can find out about what killed Weiss and the virus." Mulder turned back briefly, leaning inside to speak to her. "I'll gather what information I can."

"Call me when you find out," she insisted firmly.

He didn't agree right away, but finally nodded his head. He closed the door silently as he turned to his own car. She watched him climb inside as she pulled off ahead of him, eyeing the ruined women's clinic as she drove past. What had they gotten themselves into, she thought darkly. Viruses, DNA, cloning? It made her long for witchcraft, voodoo, and curses. Somehow, improbably, those things struck her as being much, much less complicated than this.


	82. X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully meets Mulder's new informant.

Viruses were strange, unique organisms in the grand scheme of biology. Nothing more than a bundle of DNA or RNA strands encased in a protein coat, they ranged from simple structures to complex, beautiful geometric constructs, that could attach themselves to the receptors of living cell walls for any organism and take them over, change them, alter them. Biologically viruses were in important in gene transfers, growing and spreading the genetic diversity of all the life on this planet, from plants to animals. They were as a part of life on the planet Earth as birth and death. A virus could be a deadly killer or it could be a tool to help evolve a species, to force it to grow in directions it might not have without a little, extra help. 

Almost every virus Scully had ever run across in her years since medical school was a virus whose DNA or RNA structure could be traced back to very simple, explainable pathways using the four basic amino acids that were found in ever cell structure on this planet, every one except for the cells she and Ann Carpenter had discovered in the vial labeled "Purity Control". Those were the same cell she had found in the vaccines being administered to the children in Wisconsin. The by-products of those cells breaking down had been found in her system when she was returned from wherever she was taken. And those same cells had been found in the samples from the clone of Samantha Mulder she had been able to obtain, as well as in the body of Agent Weiss. Had she realized it at the time, she could guarantee those cells might have even been in Mulder's blood stream when she had recovered him after the death of Deep Throat. It all linked back to this strange virus with its unearthly DNA sequence, what Mulder labeled as alien DNA. It was alien, in the strictest sense of the word, though she highly doubted it had anything to do with little, green men. What it was, where it came from, and why it was being used in cloning, let alone in innocent people, were all questions Scully had no possible way of answering right now. And they all burned through her mind, brought her back to that moment when she first awoke from her coma, with the lingering memory of having to return, of having a quest unfinished. She had to find out what it was that was done to her, to those children, to Agent Weiss, and to Samantha Mulder. It defied all medical science, everything she had ever been taught. Discovering why was as much her quest as finding the truth was to Mulder.

But Scully had been sidelined by the very man whose guilt and pain drove him to keep searching for a sister whose supposed death the other day had ripped open wounds that had never healed properly for him. Now Mulder had run off to God knew where, alone, without her. Scully swore silently in the darkness of his apartment, glaring at the masking tape "X" in his window. She had come here, searching for him, finding his apartment closed and an email sitting in his sent mail for her. A chicken shit way of telling her he was breaking his promise to her she scowled as she opened it and scanned it quickly. He was going alone, to find the truth about his sister, to see if the clones he had met were an indication that somewhere, someway Samantha was still alive.

Mulder had consciously left him behind, without her permission, without even her agreement or input. _Damn him_ , she thought, how dare he make that decision for her? She had told him a line needed to be drawn, that he couldn't just run after every lead just because someone said what he wanted to hear. She had meant that statement to force him to be circumspect, to make him consider everything he was hearing before he ran off after the ghost of a chance of a possibility. She hadn't meant it as an ultimatum. She hadn't intended for him to use it as a way to once again shut her out, wrap her in protection and keep her safe at home while he ran off to get himself killed. He had no idea what he was dealing with, not with the virus, not with what it did to the human blood stream, its reaction to cold. He had no idea how it was contracted or how virulent it was. Of course not, because Mulder in his ongoing quest for the truth ran off where angels feared to tread, all consequences be damned, except for his guilt, which wouldn't allow him to risk the lives of the only God damned people who understood those consequences and could keep Mulder from breaking his neck.

Damn it all, she swore, curving around a worn pillow on Mulder's leather couch. She glanced at the light still glowing in Mulder's window, the small desk lamp that illuminated the masking tape "X". Was this how he called his informant? She knew he had one. Mulder always seemed to find someone willing enough to throw breadcrumbs his way and watch him pick at them until he got swallowed up. Someone out there had to know where he was. Skinner had been unwilling to risk his neck personally for it, all too happy to buy Mulder's story of personal time and needing to take care of things. 

But Scully couldn't allow that, her sense of duty and responsibility would not allow her to let Mulder throw himself into yet another situation where he might not come out alive. She had said she would put her neck on the line for him. She had also warned him she couldn't do it all of the time. She hoped that she wasn't doing something insanely stupid by reaching out to whoever this person was feeding Mulder his information, that she wasn't going to be burned as Mulder had been. Deep Throats blood still stained her fingers. She had enough of cloak and dagger to last her a lifetime.

Scully had no idea when she actually had dozed off to sleep or for how long. She awoke with a jerk as someone knocked, lightly and perfunctorily on the front door of Mulder's apartment. Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she frowned in the semi-darkness, lit only by the desk lamp still in the window. She had lit it as a signal, to the informant she was certain Mulder had. Rushing on stocking feet to answer it, she nearly tripped over a pair of Mulder's running shoes by the door as she opened it, blinking it the brighter light of the hallway.

"Where is Mulder," she demanded of the shadow standing in front of her, not even bothering to see who it was and what he looked like. In fact he was a tall man, tall as Mulderm but more powerfully built, dark skinned and ominous, threat shrouding him as thickly as the black trench coat he wore. He was clearly surprised to see her standing there, blinking up at him expectantly after making such a peremptory demand. His black eyes showed a brief moments surprise, shock even, before a mask of such careful neutrality settled on it, it nearly made her envious at his control. He frowned just a little, a hint of apology as he turned away.

"Sorry, I must have the wrong apartment." He turned away from her with casual callousness, without even the dignity of telling her no. Angry and heedless, she followed him down the hallway towards the elevator.

"Where's Mulder?" He refused to turn or even dignify her with an answer. "I need to know, damn it!"

The man didn't seem to care. His gloved hand reached for the elevator button, as he turned to stare down at her, indifferent as he waited for the doors to open. There was just a slight edge of menace about him, a glimmer of warning in his inscrutable, dark face. But she refused to back down, not when it could mean life or death where Mulder was concerned.

"I'm losing time," she insisted furiously, but it hardly had an effect on the cold exterior of Mulder's informant. As the doors to the elevator opened he stepped inside, watching her as the doors closed.

"I'm sorry. I can't help you."

With a soft pinging noise the doors closed in her face. Scully could see a hazy reflection of her own, mutinous glare, jaw jutted in shocked disbelief. This was Mulder's "friend in the FBI"; the person who felt it was an imperative to re-open the X-files? He had gone to all this effort to get them back on track, only to fail Mulder now, to let him die doing God knew what. She swore, slamming the heel of her palm angrily against the door of the elevator and turned, eyes burning back towards Mulder's apartment. She rung her hand where it stung slightly before reaching up to rub the bridge of her nose, wondering who she could possibly go to that might be able to even locate him. Perhaps the Lone Gunmen? She wasn't sure they would have the technology to find Mulder without the coordinates and hard as he had tried to keep her out of the loop on his location, she knew he hadn't told them. Skinner didn't seem to know or care. He had summarily brushed it off as Mulder's personal business and nothing worthy of note. What then? Try calling every airline in the US, using her badge number to find another George Hale? Would he have used that name again, knowing that she would be looking for it this time around? She had no idea where to even begin looking for him.

She closed the door behind her as she reentered the apartment, her shoulders falling in defeat. Mulder always assumed he knew what was the best for her in these situations, never once caring what would happen to him, to everything, should he fail. The X-files was his quest, his project and his life's work. She couldn't carry this on by herself. And he seemed to think he could somehow divorce his demons and his quest one from the other. When would he learn that it wasn't just about him now?

She collapsed on his leather couch, the cushion giving way under her slight weight as she stared at Mulder's goldfish. They swam unconcernedly in their tank, content with the feeding she had given them earlier. Goldfish were a perfect pet for Mulder, she realized. They required no more attention than feeding and the occasional cleaning of the tank. Then he could forget about them while he focused on himself, what he wanted, and what he needed, the self-centered, selfish bastard. She wanted to cry but found she was too upset even for that. Instead she stared, angrily, at the masking tape X, feeling as if she had somehow failed. She did not come back from everything she had come back from to be left behind, damn it.

Mulder's door knocked again, this time loud and demanding. She frowned, getting up and crossing once more to the door, hoping against hope it was the strange man Mulder had as an informant, having changed his mind. In a million years she wouldn't have expected it to be her boss standing at the door, especially not in the condition he was in.

"Agent Mulder took a commercial flight to Tacoma, Washington." AD Skinner's face bled from cuts on his forehead, nose, and lips, the bottom of which threatened to swell painfully in a few moments. His clothes were askew as he leaned against the doorframe, breathing raggedly. "From there, he caught a military plane to Deadhorse, Alaska."

Scully blinked at her boss, stunned into silent. It took her several moments to remember that he was standing in the middle of a hallway, bleeding. She motioned him into Mulder's apartment; feeling self-conscious allowing their boss entry into what was Mulder's private domain.

"He used his F.B.I. credentials to charter a Rollagon all-terrain vehicle. It's still a ten-mile hike across the ice." Skinner continued, crossing over to a table filled with books, papers, pens, and other odds and ends. Grabbing a slip of notepaper, he began writing notes down, a series of numbers and letters.

"These are the coordinates for his final destination." Skinner passed the note to her. She scanned it quickly recognizing the longitude and latitude as being somewhere in northern Alaska, perhaps off the coast. She quietly thanked her late father for all of his boring lessons on maps and coordinates.

"What is he doing there," she asked, frowning up at Skinner's impassive face.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Agent Scully," he replied curtly. "Think Mulder will mind if I use his restroom?"

"Ummm…no." She frowned as she even looked for it. It occurred to her she hadn't ever used it while here. Skinner seemed to find it easily enough, closing the door behind him as the water began to run inside. Perhaps, she thought, she should see if there was some ice and a towel in the kitchen for him.

Alaska? What would be in Alaska, she wondered. Military bases, yes, perhaps there was a clue leading him there. She couldn't imagine there being anything else that would attract him. She opened Mulder's freezer deep in thought, reaching for an ice tray and twisting it to free the cubes, pulling out several that she placed in what she hoped was a mostly clean, kitchen towel hanging by Mulder's kitchen sink. What would they hide in Alaska? Secret technologies? It was possible, especially given how remote any base up there would be. Perhaps other secrets. She knew that the military covered the existence of the strange, invading tapeworms she and Mulder had discovered the year before. Who knew what else they could be hiding up there? Experiments? Perhaps it was where they created the virus she had found in Weiss's system?

Skinner's heavy steps behind her caused her to spin around, breaking her train of thought. The blood was staunched for the most part, but he was going to have a hell of a fat lip come the morning. She frowned, wrapping the ice in the cotton towel and passing it to her boss with the sort of knowing air she would have used on one of her patience back in med school.

"Put that on your lip, three minutes on, three minutes off, it will reduce the swelling." She placed the makeshift compress in his hand and nodded towards his face. "If you don't want too many questions in the office, you might say you just had an accident at the gym."

"Boxing is a dangerous sport, Agent Scully. Sometimes you get knocked around a bit," Skinner replied, a pointed glimmer in his dark eyes.

She nodded knowingly. "I hope your boxing injuries heal quickly, sir." She would keep her mouth shut. He had gone out of his way to help them. Skinner couldn't keep sticking his neck out for Mulder every time he turned around, not if he wanted to maintain the position that he was in, and they needed him there, whether Mulder realized it or not.

"My suggestion, Agent Scully is that you bring your partner home, in one piece preferably." Skinner's eyes narrowed behind his slightly askew glasses. "It's none of my business if he was salmon fishing on the ice up there, but I do know that I would hate to have to explain why it is he used FBI credentials on a personal trip, if you get my meaning."

Scully did, completely. "Yes, sir."

"I think I'll see myself out." He nodded curtly to her, straightening his suit coat and overcoat slightly over his broad shoulders before touching his broken, injured lip with the ice pack. "You think Mulder will mind I took his towel?" There was a hint of a smile in there somewhere, but Skinner would be damned before he let it out.

"I don't think he knows for sure he has kitchen towels, sir," she replied, flippantly. "Remember what I said about the ice."

"Thank you." He turned towards Mulder's door, letting himself out. She watched him go as he gingerly held the ice pack to his lip.

Ice….cold….Samantha Mulder…the virus. The virus would be stable someplace cold. If there was any testing going on involving the virus, chances were they would run it in a cold climate, well away from any further human contact. And if that strange man, whatever he was, the shape shifter, had come to kill the cloned doctors, all of whom carried a variant of it…perhaps he and the answer on the truth of Mulder's sister were somewhere up north. She ran to Mulder's phone in the other room, calling up the first airline she could think of. She planned on being on the first flight she could get to Alaska, or the one she thought would get her the closest to it. And when she caught up with Mulder, and she would, she would handcuff him to his seat and personally drag him back home, whether he liked it or not.

He had to realize, she thought as she glanced at the "X" at the window, that he wasn't alone in this anymore.


	83. Luck and Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully rushes to Alaska to save Mulder's life.

The doctors at Eisenhower Field stared at her as if she were mad. Fuck it, she swore to herself, let them. She threw off her jacket as she crossed to the icy tub where Mulder's body lay, submerged. Damn it all, she didn't fly all this way to have him die on her, not on her fucking watch.

"Let's get him out of that tub now," she barked to the closest nurses, who stared wildly at their lead physician as if to ask what to do about this strange, short, red-haired mad woman, barking orders in his ER. The doctor regarded her for a long moment as she grabbed the defibrillators and nodded to his team. He held the oxygen mask over Mulder's frighteningly pale face as the nurses lifted him out of the tub, his naked skin pinkish gray from the ice and cold water.

"A hundred joules, charged and ready." The technician manning the equipment nodded to her.

"Clear!" She gave the standard signal to the medical team to stand back from the highly, electrically charged paddles as she placed them on Mulder's chest. They went off, shocking his body into jerking upwards on the table. His heart refused stubbornly to restart again. She frantically glanced towards the nurse manning his vitals.

"No rhythm," she replied instantly. Scully stared at Mulder's far too still face, refusing to give into the panic clawing at the inside of her brain.

"Charge?" The tech glanced from Scully to the doctor.

"No," the doctor began, but Scully cut him off. Leave it to this idiot and Mulder would have no chance.

"Clear!" She ignored her counterpart, placing the metal plates against Mulder's freezing skin again. Once more, his body jerked as the electricity shot through it. She held her breath, silently reciting the Hail Mary as she glanced up to the nurse.

"I'm picking up a faint pulse." She confirmed, glancing now to Scully instead of the directing doctor.

If she had been alone with Mulder, she might have cried with relief. Instead, she set down the defibrillator paddles and barked out orders. "I want a digoxin 0.1 milligram IV. Hang a heparin drip at 1,000 units per hour and get him two units of fresh frozen plasma, now."

Without a word the nurse ran off to do as she was bid. The doctor glared after her, before turning on Scully, clearly annoyed. He was being over-ruled by some demanding FBI agent who was countermanding everything medical science was telling him. He didn't know the virus he was dealing with though and she did, and frankly she didn't care if he had a Harvard Medical Degree printed in platinum, he could kiss her ass if he thought he was going to keep her away from her partner right now.

"The patient's not even in…"

"He's going to make it." She cut him off firmly, glancing down at Mulder's far too still face, his breath thready under the oxygen mask. She ran her fingers through his soft, cold hair. He would make it, if she had to be the one doing all of this herself. Damn it all, why did he do this, she wondered, as she watched the nurses set up the IV's full of plasma and adrenaline. She had, by chance, just happened to find him there, caught at Eisenhower Air Field waiting for a transport to take her to the coordinates that Skinner had brought her. But Alaska's freakish winter weather had snowed her in at the air base when the Coast Guard rescue helicopter had come in from the Bering Sea, carrying Mulder with it. She had just been lucky enough to have caught the messages flying in while she had checked in to see if she could possible get a flight out there tonight. It terrified her to think what would have happened had she not been there in time, if she hadn't heard them bring him in, if she hadn't stepped into this ER and forced herself in for his treatment. He would be dead right now, there would be no question. Mulder may be an atheist, she thought, but God certainly had some sort of strange, soft spot for him. He seemed to always send Scully in the nick of time to rescue his ass.

"Keep his temperature low and begin him on a course of anti-virals immediately." Her fingers trailed down his face towards the oxygen mask, tightening it around his nose and mouth. "And keep him on the transfusions. Hopefully in a couple of hours his condition will improve."

"Hopefully?" The doctor glared at her across Mulder. "By what right do you think you can come in here…"

"I know what Agent Mulder is infected with," she replied coldly, straightening to cross her arms in front of her, eyes blazing as she met his challenging stare. "I've been in Washington the last five days working with scientists at the US Medical Research institute, trying to determine what the hell this virus is and its nature. I think right now that makes me a tad more qualified that you, doctor, in treating this. If we had gone with your original plan of raising Agent Mulder's body temperature, the virus would have become aggressive, further thickening the blood and causing immediate cardiac distress and arrest. This virus is dormant in temperatures close to freezing."

He didn't look as if he believed her.

"If I'm lying, doctor, why is it the patient seems to be responding?"

Indeed, Mulder's condition was beginning to stabilize, if slowly. The rest of the staff bustled around him, carrying out Scully's orders, all while shooting careful, discreet glances towards their chief. He scowled at her, then at Mulder, and then at his team.

"You heard the woman, get him stable, keep his temperature down, start the anti-virals." He snapped his orders, heedless of the fact they were already performing the duties asked of them. Quietly Scully nodded, reaching down to grasp Mulder's stiff, cold fingers in her own briefly.

"You can't get away from me that easily, Fox Mulder." Glancing across to the attending nurse, she gave the woman a curt nod as she turned and made her way out of the emergency room. She had no idea where she was going or what to do really. She needed coffee and a bed, but she highly doubted she would find the latter at an Air Force base in Alaska, not for a civilian and certainly not for one who had just crashed into another doctor's party.

"Coffee," she asked the nurse who had tried to stop her from entering the ER at all. The nurse eyed her skeptically, but jerked her head towards a small room just off the reception area where Scully could smell the cheap, slightly burning scent of Folgers left to sit too long. She didn't care if it was melted rubber tires in the pot, she wanted the warm, caffeinated liquid, and she wanted it now.

She was into her third cup of the vile tasting stuff when the doctor entered into the small lunchroom, warily glaring at her as she sat at a folding card table. She slowly sipped the concoction of coffee, powdered creamer and artificial sweetner. It was at least hot, which was more than she could say for the weather outside. The doctor took off his surgical mask. He was in his late thirties, if she were a judge, slightly grizzled, with the look of a career military man about him. Probably an Air Force trained doctor if she could lay her money on it, which would doubly explain his irritation with her taking over his ER. Doctors as a whole hated to be upstaged in their own medical facilities and military doctors were almost worse. You had to have your team look to you for leadership and someone else countermanding your leadership could break down the team. She had a feeling that she was going to get an earful of it from this doctor. He wordlessly stalked to the coffee pot, pulling out a mug that said, "World's Greatest Dad" on the side and filling it full of thick, brown liquid.

"The coffee here is shit," he remarked gruffly. "But then, if you've been through medical school, you've had worse." He set the pot down and began sipping the nasty stuff straight. Scully had to admit she was impressed he could choke it down without so much as a grimace.

"I went to Stanford, our crappy coffee was a bit higher quality than other people's," she admitted ruefully as the doctor leaned against the counter, his lean face nodding.

"I went to Temple. Not a bad school, but not nearly as well off as Stanford." He pulled again from his mug. "How does a Stanford medical doctor end up in the FBI?"

"How does a Temple medical doctor end up working for the Air Force?" She raised a challenging eyebrow. The doctor met it and then laughed, relenting.

"Probably the same reason. You didn't want to see yourself tied to a hospital forever and felt you could make a difference using your skills elsewhere?" He chuckled in a sort of familiar understanding. "I had that conversation with myself. I went to med school because my mom wanted me to go. Dad wanted me in the military. I compromised and did both. You?"

If it was a way to break the ice with the man, so be it. "I went to med school because my Navy father wanted his daughter in a safe profession since his sons both decided to follow in his footsteps."

"FBI doesn't look so safe." He nodded to the gun she had prominently holstered on her hip.

"It's not," she smiled softly. "I got to medical school and realized that it wasn't precisely what I wanted to do with myself at the time."

"Isn't that how it always happens when you do it for a parent?" The doctor nodded sagely, finally pushing off from the counter enough to hold out a hand to her. "Major Mark Childress."

She took the other man's well-worn hand firmly. "Special Agent Dana Scully."

"Like the baseball announcer?" He grinned. It wasn't the first or the last time she would hear that.

"Like the baseball announcer," she confirmed, nodding.

Childress went back to leaning against the counter, drinking deeply of the tar-like substance that passed for coffee. "So is this Mulder character your partner?"

"Yes, for now." She glared down at her Styrofoam cup. "That's if I don't kill him before he gets back to DC."

"I take it he came out here unauthorized?" That was a crime to most military types, and frankly to most FBI Agents. The idea of anyone being as loose a cannon as Mulder tended to be was anathema.

"Ironically, he was here on his own. Personal trip, personal reasons. It just so happens the personal reasons dovetailed into the investigation he left behind."

"What in the hell was he into out in the middle of no where that would infect him with…that?" Childress waved his hand helplessly towards his ER.

"I don't know," she admitted slowly. "He would know. I only have a suspicion." She didn't want to go too far into detail, to expose their findings to too many people. "Its my believe that Agent Mulder was infected with an engineered virus. I don't know where it comes from or how it got here, but it killed at least one of our agents last week."

"Killed an agent?" He was shocked. "Is this a wide spread outbreak?"

"No." Thank God for that, she thought. "No, as far as I can tell, the nature of the virus's contagiousness is very limited. It needs to directly infect the body the moment it is outside of the original carrier, otherwise the virus cannot sustain itself for long periods outside of the body. I believe that Agent Weiss and Agent Mulder were infected by someone who is a carrier, a man who is a suspect in an ongoing, Federal investigation, one who Agent Mulder might have been tracking on his own up here to Alaska."

"Care to explain what it is that this virus does?" Childress was interested but clearly concerned. He and his staff could have been exposed to a deadly contagion that could have very easily wiped out this base. And if Scully were the doctor in this position, she would be pissed the hell off.

"The virus as best as I can tell causes the body to over produce red blood cells, causing a thickening of the blood. This is what starts the reaction in the face, swelling the eyes, nose and mouth there. Once the reaction starts it spreads, raising the blood pressure and slowing the heart's ability to function properly."

"And you said this virus is engineered?"

"Yes," she responded evenly.

"Do you know by who?" He was curious and perhaps a little suspicious. Maybe not of her, but he was a man of science in the military and Scully was positive he probably heard things, or rumors of things.

"I am not at liberty to speculate." It was the only response she could fairly give. But there was meaning in her words, if you cared to look, and Childress perhaps had found all the meaning he needed. He nodded slowly, with a look that said he didn't want to know anymore.

"You know, I should lock you up in the brig for barging into my ER and giving orders to my staff," he growled softly, though there was no heat in his words. "But I have to admit, you did a good job under fire."

From a fellow doctor that meant a lot. "I did my residency in an ER before I switched to pathology." She shrugged as she finished the last of her sticky, sweet coffee. "I thought about cardiology for a while, but that didn't work out. The ER was part of the rotation for all interns, and when that was done, I switched to cutting up dead people."

"Well at least you haven't forgotten how to treat the living." He stood up from his leaning position, one hand on the scrubs at his hip. "You're partner is awful damn lucky to have you as a partner, Agent Scully. He would be dead right now if he didn't."

Who knew gratitude could feel so painful at times? Her eyes stung slightly as she nodded gratefully at the other doctor. "Be sure to tell him that when he wakes up, will you?"

"I'll have my staff set up a room for you, Agent Scully. You can stay here till your partner gets back on his feet."

She nodded, feeling for the first time the weight of her week on her head. She was still suffering from the effects of her concussion. The cuts and abrasions along her scalp were itching now, finally healing from the beating she had taken at the hands of the shape shifter. All of that coupled with the emotional toll of the loss of Samantha Mulder, who wasn't Samantha Mulder, the frantic search for her partner, and the scrambling flights to Alaska, only to have Mulder nearly die right before her eyes as she slammed into the operating room, left her exhausted. Her body ached, her eyes drooped, and despite the three cups of coffee she had just consumed, she could perhaps happily fall asleep there at the table, not to be awakened for hours.

Perhaps she dozed, she couldn't remember. She knew a nurse finally did wake rouse her enough to get her to a room with a bed, clean sheets, and a pillow. She fell gratefully in, her sleep untroubled by viruses or clones, her mind too exhausted to formulate even those dark thoughts into dreams. Her last, cognizant thought was that if something truly horrible were to happen to Mulder, Childress would at least come and wake her if necessary. She had earned that much of the man's respect.

When she did awake, she was stunned to discover it was twelve hours later and not even her now full bladder had forced her out of bed. She eased herself out of bed, rubbing her eyes as she moved about the small, utilitarian bathroom. Was her wristwatch correct in its time? Had she really been asleep for so long? She shuffled out of the small room, down the quiet hallway of the medical facility. It was a small hospital, really only outfitted to treat the Army, Navy and Coast Guard personal stationed in the out-of-the way area of Alaska and perhaps the occasional stranded or injured fisherman who happened to be rescued in the turbid, dangerous waters of the Bering Sea not far away. As usual, he was where he shouldn't have been, found at the sight of a missing sub trapped in the ice, discovered by Naval reconaissance. Why he was there or how he even got the information, Scully didn't know, and she was almost afraid to ask. She had a feeling Mulder's new informant, the mysterious man who had come to his apartment, had his hand in this situation.

She found Mulder's room easily enough. The building was too small for her to get lost. One of the nurses stood checking his vitals as he lay, looking comfortable enough, his oxygen mask now replaced by a breathing tube. His color had returned, his grayish skin now turned a healthier pink, though his face and hands bore unmistakable marks of some frost bite, the whitish pink patches marring one cheek and the back of his hands.

"How's he doing," she asked the woman as she finished studying the machine by his bed, nodding in a satisfied sort of way.

"Much better, thanks to your course of treatment." She smiled warmly at Scully, nodding towards a chair by the bed. "He hasn't woken up, but Major Childress said you are more than welcome to stay and keep an eye on him.

"Thanks," she breathed as she settled beside Mulder. Would this be the tenor of their partnership, she wondered in brief amusement. Periods of strangeness punctuated by the two of them swapping off sitting at the other's bedsides? It unnerved her, she admitted it, seeing Mulder, as vital and vibrant as he was lying there, so quiescent and still. It seemed unnatural to her worldview, as if she had looked out the window and discovered that the sky was purple or that the grass was orange. This was not how Mulder should be. He should be up right now, trying to convince her to follow him to some icy glacier in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, to see an alien space ship. He should be arguing with her when she tried to make him listen to reason, stalking the room in agitation as she sat there calmly and coolly and tried to rationalize with him. He shouldn't be lying there so very still.

It was two days of him lying so very still. For the first few hours, she watched every blip on his vitals screen, every inching up of the line indicating his heartbeat. But eventually, when she was reassured that he would survive and nothing further untoward would happen to him, she grew restless and bored. She had brought a novel, unread in the things she had managed to grab from her apartment in her mad dash to Dulles to fly to Alaska. But the events of the past days left her wired, unable to focus on the lighter fair of the random, courtroom drama she had picked up. Setting it aside, she reached for a pen and paper. At least, she thought, she could write her field report notes, trap them with ink in front of her so she could type them up for the files later. Skinner would want a full accounting, and she doubted that Mulder in his condition would be up for work for weeks yet and by then the details of it all would be lost.

It was day three of her vigil, her account finally up to date with what she knew and understood of Mulder's exploits in Alaska. He still lay quietly, the oxygen tube now gone, his temperature, breathing, and vitals all were normal. She expected him to wake at any moment. The bare bones of the report were completed now, but it was her personal thoughts and observations she needed. Her entire world had been thrown into stark contrast by this case. The man who could shape change, the clones of Samantha Mulder and the Gregors, an engineered virus, these things should only exist in science fiction, in stories made up by others in books and television. They should exist in the real world. But she had seen them with her own eyes; her science had pinpointed the nature of the virus, of how Mulder was exposed to it, and ultimately how to treat it. She couldn't deny the unexplained here, the paranormal aspects of this case. To do so would be gross negligence on her part as an investigator. But she could attempt to understand these unexplained phenomena, to try to find the scientific basis for why these things she saw occurred and happened. As a scientist she could do no less, for at the heart of all scientific research was that very human need to explain and quantify the unknown, to give a label and a reason for why all phenomena happens, and she could give Mulder no less than her scientific understanding for all of the things he saw and ran across, including this alien virus.

Mulder moaned softly in the bed, the first noise he had made since he had been brought in. Scully's eyes flew up to the bed as she set down her pen, watching as his dark eyelashes fluttered open and his forehead creased in a slightly confused frown. He turned his head slowly, stopping when he saw her, sitting by his bedside, watching him with a smile.

"Hey," she greeted him as he worked his tongue in his mouth. She reached for a glass on the table beside him, placing the straw inside close enough to his lips he could suck on it briefly.

"How you feeling?" She set the glass back down again.

"Like I got a bad case of freezer burn." He croaked in a voice that sounded rusty and raw from disuse. "How did I get here?"

"A naval reconnaissance squad found and choppered you to Eisenhower Field." She studied him to see if he remembered. Apparently he didn't. He nodded in understanding, but it was clear he had no memory of being flown in here, nearly dead as she frantically tried to get to him.

"Thanks for ditching me," she remarked, feeling only slightly guilty she was bringing this up now. She at least kept much of the hurt and anger she felt towards him for leaving her once again out of her tone. He had the grace to at least frown somewhat guiltily.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his eyes dark and remorseful as he looked up at her from his pillow, his thin, pale face regretful. He looked so beaten as it was; a small part of her just wanted to forgive him. But she couldn't do this again; she couldn't go through this with him again. She couldn't live with that anxiety and fear worry that by the time she got to him it would be too late.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Scully hoped he had at least found that. A small, regretful smile flickered across his wasted face for the briefest of moments.

"No," he sighed softly. "No, but I found something I thought I'd lost."

She frowned at him, wondering.

"Faith to keep looking," he replied softly, eyes shining hopefully in his sunken cheeks.

That was all she needed to hear.


	84. Look At Where We Are, Look At Where We Started

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully meets Mulder's father as he faces some harsh truths.

"Why do I have to stay here?"

Scully wondered if it was possible for Fox Mulder to look, sound, or act any more like a petulant child then when he was laid up in the hospital. He didn't look happy, he certainly didn't sound happy, and she knew he kept surreptitiously glancing at the window of the Anchorage hospital she had him transferred to, as if sizing up how best to climb out the window and make his way to freedom. The man needed to be put on one of those toddler leashes, she grumbled privately. He couldn't be trusted in any institution that required doctors and nurses, he would just try to get himself out of it.

"Mulder, you were infected with an unknown virus, one that has killed at least one person, and you survived it. I'm not letting you anywhere near the general population, let alone on a plane, till you are clearly better." She crossed her arms firmly in front of her, glaring at him from the end of his hospital bed. "Besides, its Skinner's orders. You are to stay here, in bed, till we've completed the blood work and you've received a clean bill of health from all attending physicians."

"Skinner's orders?" He sneered at her mutinously. "You went to our boss to cover for you?"

"I do what I must, Mulder." She wasn't in the least bit sorry either. "I can't have this virus getting out into the population until its been properly studied, and you might still be contagious. Besides," she smiled sweetly at him. "It's only a couple of more days, and the nurses here say you're cute."

She could play him like a violin, she thought smugly, as this statement seemed to mollify him somewhat. He blinked in pleased surprise, his angry petulance replaced by cocky pleasure. "They really said that?"

She wasn't about to tell him that two of the girls behind the nurses' station had squealed to themselves that he was "so freaking hot". Scully was fairly certain that they either assumed she couldn't hear or was his doctor and thus didn't care. She had been simultaneously amused and startled. What sort of women became giggling schoolgirls over her partner?

"If you stay here like a good boy, Mulder, I'm sure they will be thrilled beyond imagining. You'd do these nurses a good service." The very feminist part of Dana Scully was horrified that she was stooping to such levels to keep her partner pacified like this. Feeding on Mulder's tendency to objectify women was not something she wanted to encourage, but when desperate, any method to keep the patient sedated would do.

"So they said I was cute?" Mulder pleasantly thoughtful. She snorted, rolling her eyes at him as she patted his foot under the blanket covering it.

"Stay here, flirt with the pretty nurses. I have to go check on your blood work, okay?"

Really, Mulder was far too easy sometimes. Despite his intellect, you put a pretty face in front of him and he became a blithering idiot. She supposed that at least proved that he was mortal, despite what the other jerks at the FBI said. And there was, she realized, a certain comfort in the knowledge that for all his qualities and fault, Mulder was just a guy. He liked girls, he liked beer, he liked bad movies, he couldn't pick up his socks, and he hated, hated doctors. Well, perhaps he didn't hate her. She smiled as she made her way to the nurses' station. She had a feeling she was the only doctor he would put up with on a regular basis, and that was perhaps because she wouldn't put up with his crap. He knew that the puppy dog eyes, the incessant wheedling, and the depressed, longing sighs would have little to no effect on her whatsoever. On the nurses who squealed about him being hot though…

"Do you have the blood work I requested?" She smiled at the nurse on duty who nodded and reached for a file behind her with Mulder's name on the tab. Scully thanked her as she began looking through the tests; her eyes scanning the charts and numbers quickly. So far, everything looked normal/ Mulder's levels were improved and it certainly looked as if in a day or two he might be able to return home safe and sound.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where to find Fox Mulder? I'm here to see him."

Scully's head snapped up to the care worn, middle aged face that was directed at the nurse, worrying his bottom lip in a fashion that Scully found immediately familiar, but foreign on the angular features. The nurse nodded, but her eyes immediately moved towards Scully standing beside the man, as if to ask her personally if Mulder was able to see any visitors.

"Agent Mulder's resting at the moment." Scully stepped in smoothly, holding out her hand to the gentleman. "I'm assisting in his care. I'm his partner, Agent Scully."

The name rang familiarly to the man, his brilliant eyes lighting up in recognition. "Fox has spoken highly of you. I'm his father, Bill."

A face and a name to put with the one Mulder parent Scully had yet to meet. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mulder." She glanced down the hallway towards her partner's room. "Fox is resting right now." At least he should be if he knew what was good for him, she thought darkly. "Perhaps you and I can chat. I'll fill you in on his condition. After that, if you like, you can go in and see him."

Bill Mulder didn't look as if he believed her on the resting part. Perhaps he knew his son's disdain for hospitals as well. But he relented, nodding as she motioned towards a lounge area not far away, empty for the moment, filled with chairs and magazines for the waiting visitors.

"Fox's mother sent me here to see him. She received a call from the Bureau regarding his condition," he began as Scully motioned for him to take a seat. "She asked if I would come out to check on him, to make sure he was all right."

"Your son is much improved, Mr. Mulder," she didn't want to tell him just how close to death Fox had come. It still terrified her, his face that awful shade of bluish gray, the way his blood thickened in his veins just under the skin. "He should be going home to Washington within a few days. Right now we are just keeping him under observation."

"Observation for what? No one would tell his mother what he was infected with, only that he had been sick."

"It's an unknown virus, sir," she replied, unsure of where to even begin or how to even explain what it was his son had been infected with, let alone how it fit into the mysterious reappearance of his daughter. "My best guess is that Fox was infected with an engineered disease carried by a man we believe to be responsible for the death of at least one agent, and quiet possibly many more people…including the woman who passed herself off as your daughter."

She had just crossed into sacred territory here and she knew it. The elder Mulder reared back slightly as if she had slapped him in the face, eyes narrowing in an expression that was so very much like his son's it was startling.

"Agent Scully, I don't know what you are insinuating here..."

"I'm insinuating nothing, Mr. Mulder," she replied calmly, meeting the older man's glittering eyes evenly. "In the course of our investigation it was discovered that the woman who presented herself as your missing daughter, Samantha, was indeed not her, and that she was being targeted by this man. She used your families loss to help secure your son's involvement in her protection."

Many emotions and thoughts passed across Bill Mulder's expression, anger, hurt, resentment, fear, and then understanding. Something appeared to make a strange sort of sense to him as his lined face crumpled slightly and his shoulder's sagged beneath the warm coat he wore. Scully felt her heart go out to the man as he realized that for the second time he had lost his daughter, even if she had never really been his daughter, and he had nearly lost his son as well because of it. She was seeing the weight of this family tragedy now, not through the half-remembered eyes of the child-cum-man, but through the father who had been the one to comfort a grieving wife and stricken child as he waited, wondering if his little girl would ever come home.

"Why did Fox come here to Alaska, Agent Scully," Bill finally asked in a voice as heavy and gray as the expression on his face. "The FBI said he was up here on personal business."

"It was personal, to him," she murmured softly. "I don't know all of the details, Mr. Mulder. I know that while I was conducting an autopsy on the dead agents remains, your son booked passage here based on information passed to him about a missing Naval submarine and this man who had kidnapped me and killed the woman who said she was Samantha. Who gave this information, for what purpose, and why he was up here…you'd have to ask your son about that."

He flinched slightly at those words. Scully guessed she hit home somewhere with the older man, who cast guilty eyes in the direction of the hallway where his son's room sat. Mulder had always said he and his father had a strained relationship at best. It was always moments like this, when you realize just what you had almost lost, that you begin to regret those arguments and differences that separated family members and friends.

"I don't know what Fox has told you, Ms. Scully, about our relationship," he began gravely. "We aren't what anyone would call…close."

"I had surmised," she confirmed neutrally. It wasn't her place to try and bridge the gap between father and son. Bill Mulder regarded her, as if trying to surmise how much he should open up to her about the Mulder family secrets and the story of how what had once been a tight-knit family had been torn apart.

"It's hard for Teena." Je sighed heavily, with obvious affection for his former wife. "All we have together now is Fox and he has never been sick a day in his life. Not really sick, he had broken limbs, bumps on the head, occasionally he would make himself ill eating too much of something his mother had told him not to eat. It has never been to the point where she would call me to come and see him."

He paused and Scully waited in silence. It was obvious that despite the distance between the two, he was clearly worried and frightened for his child. Small wonder, Scully thought, if Mulder had never been this close to death before for either of his parents. She realized she was now becoming rather used to the idea of Mulder throwing himself headlong into situations that would quite possibly get him killed. She doubted that Mulder, who tried to have as little contact with either of his parents as possible, bothered telling them anything about the situations he found himself in.

"I was very close to my son once, believe it or not," Bill continued. "As close as any father and son. Teena and I didn't think we would be able to have children. We tried for years, but…well, Fox was something of a miracle for us, and then Samantha besides. Sammy was always her mother's favorite. Well, as favorites as any parent will have, Teena adores Fox, her firstborn. But mothers always love their daughters, whom they can shower affection on. And fathers, we look to our sons to pass on our legacy, to carry on the flame of what we have worked so hard to build. Fox used to follow in every footstep of mine as a boy. He was my shadow from the moment I would come home of a weekend." 

He chuckled sadly, scrubbing at his face. "He loved baseball. It was the first game I taught him. He was so good at it too, that and basketball, something I was never good at. He could have played basketball at Harvard. Baseball too. His mother wanted him to go there. He would have been closer to home."

"She was disappointed he went to Oxford?" Scully would have thought both parents would have been thrilled to see their son at such a prestigious university.

"Well, you know how mother's are, they want their children close to home. And Fox was all we had left." He sighed sadly. "I was glad he went though, very proud that he went. He did so well there. I don't think I told him, really, just how proud of him I am." His words hung heavy with regret. For a moment Scully thought her own father, also named Bill, who had left so much left unsaid at the time of his death.

"You don't have children yet, do you Ms. Scully?"

"No sir, not yet."

"Someday you'll have a child," he nodded knowingly. "You'll understand just what it means to you to have someone who looks to you so completely, who loves and cares for you without reservation. Lovers come and go, marriages crumble, friends will leave, but the love of a child for a parent is unconditional. And if not treated with the proper respect and care, it can be crushed and lost, irrevocably torn apart. I didn't realize that at the time. I was a man too caught up in my own grief."

It was shocking to watch Mulder's father sitting there in front of her, baring his soul to what amounted to be a perfect stranger, growing older and sadder by the second he spoke. He had no reason to confess these things to her. He had no idea really who she was outside of what little she surmised Mulder had told him. Perhaps there was something about her that drew father and son alike to confess to her their sins and secret pains.

"If there is anyone who should bare the brunt of Samantha's disappearance, it is I." His voice trembled ever so slightly before he cleared his throat, firmly clenching his jaw for a moment before continuing. "I know Fox has always blamed himself for it, and I'm afraid that I am a great deal at fault for that. Teena…well, let's say that Teena had many reasons to divorce me, the loss of her children being only the largest of the sins I had committed. I loved my wife, I still do, but there are some things that you can never really quite forgive in a marriage, and destroying your children would be one of them. I had been warned about Samantha, that there might be someone who would try to take her. I had ignored it. We lived in a quiet house, a quiet town, where our neighbors could see everything that happened. We slept without our doors locked. My children ran around in the summer time unsupervised, doing God knows what, where. I didn't think once that anything possibly could hurt either of them. I thought that they would be safe. And so when I was warned, I ignored it. I thought that my children would be the exception to the rule."

"But they weren't," Scully prompted gravely, seeing for the first time another side of the story of Samantha Mulder, a story that was ingrained into her now.

"No," Bill shook his head gravely. "Teena and I had left the kids that night to play bridge next door. We did it often enough, and Fox was old enough he could keep an eye on Samantha. We could almost hear them if we stood on the front porch. We had wound down for the night, having drinks when it happened. Teena heard it first. Fox screaming his sister's name. When we got to him, she was gone, and he was hysterical. We never did get the full account of just what happened that night. I don't think Fox ever completely remembered. I'm sure you have heard the details from Fox about what it did to the family. Fox never forgave himself for what happened. And I was so lost in my own grief that I never recognized how much my son blamed himself for it. I suppose, at first, I might have given him the impression I blamed him as well. It wasn't my intention, but I wanted so very much to have the truth out of what happened, to give to the police and FBI as they investigated. I pushed Fox too hard, I laid the responsibility of his sister's loss at his feet. I didn't realize till much to late what it had done to my son and my marriage. I lost more than Samantha that night, Ms. Scully. I destroyed my entire family."

He said it so matter-of-factually, with the same distant remorse that drove her crazy with his son. A part of Scully could understand completely Bill Mulder's reaction. She couldn't even begin to understand what it was like to lose a child like that. But it hurt and angered her to just how much pain he caused the son who looked to his parents for comfort and understand. Fox had received neither from all she could gather, and had been made to fell responsible for it all. It was small wonder that Samantha had become his driving obsession.

"Did you ever find out what happened to Samantha?" Her words were more accusing than she meant them to be. But it galled her slightly the idea that Mulder's father might know more about the incident than he had ever told his son, despite the fact that he knew Mulder had been searching for her all of this time.

"No," Bill responded, shaking his head gravely. "Fox's memories of the event were fractured at best and there was no evidence that led to any one person in particular. Despite the warnings of people lurking about the neighborhood, we never got a good description, and the investigation was dropped months later. Teena filed for divorce before summer, and I stayed in Washington, closer to work, while they remained in Massachusetts. I tried, as I could, to maintain a relationship with my son. But that night I fractured something between us, that bond we had always had from the moment he was born. I had crushed it and he never quite forgave me for it."

Scully watched the man who had figured so greatly in her partner's life for long, quiet moments. It was a horrible day in every child's life when they realized their parents weren't perfect people; that they were human beings, prone to the same faults and mistakes that their children were. For Mulder, he had come to realize it the terrifying night his sister was taken. She could tell that Bill desperately missed his son, and loved him despite the distance, anger, and hurt. He wouldn't have flown thousands of miles to Anchorage otherwise. But he had created a gulf between himself and his only remaining child and he didn't know how to bridge it.

"I never wanted Fox to join the Bureau, you know." He said it, almost apologetically.

"I had heard," she admitted. "Reggie Purdue, Fox's first boss, he said you had asked him to get him to leave."

"I admit it," Bill nodded. "Part of that was Teena. But most of it was myself. The Bureau is a dangerous place, as you know Ms. Scully. And I didn't want to risk losing my only son to some crazed gunman's bullet. But…" He paused, as if weighing what to say next. "I knew where Fox's interests really were. I knew what he wanted to do there and I knew he wanted to open the investigation into his sister's disappearance again. Fox was asking questions, had been asking questions for a long time, before he even joined the Bureau. I knew that there were those who didn't like the questions being asked, specially men I used to work with. I knew that they would not appreciate the things that Fox would bring up or insinuate and that life for him would get progressively more difficult if he persisted."

"You knew about the threats against his work with the X-files? And you didn't warn him?"

"Did you try talking my son out of coming out here, Agent Scully," Bill pointed out with a dry smile. "He holds a great deal of regard for you and your thoughts and opinions. He has hardly spoken to me in months. How weighty would my warnings be to him, especially given the fact he is angry at me already for blaming him, and rightly so. I did warn him, I have warned him. But Fox is, and always has been, single minded in his passions."

"I'm here, sir, and I'm listening."

A soft smile, almost warm and tender, crossed the elder Mulder's lips. "I see why he likes you so much, Ms. Scully. You really are rather fearless, aren't you?"

"I don't know, sir. I fear a lot of things. I fear for your son a great deal."

"I do too," he affirmed. "I worked for a long time in the State Department. The work I did, it was by no means anything I was ever proud of. I did things, and was part of things, that I felt wrong about at the time. I had to swallow the great evil then to prevent the greater evil later. Even today, I realize that I agreed to set myself on paths that I know have made my son's life difficult. I have tried to use whatever influence I could to prevent this, but old men can't hide from their sins forever and I have many sins waiting to find me."

If his statement was cryptic, the remorse he felt wasn't. It was clear on his drawn and worn face the regret he felt for a lifetime of wrongs he committed to his family and others. What should she say to this man, Scully wondered briefly, this man who had so shaped the life of his son and by extension her own life? Should she hate him for mistakes that hurt someone she had come to care for a great deal, a man she considered a friend? Or should she understand that Bill Mulder, much like her own father, was a human being with human failings, who was unable to ever quite make amends for the choices he made in his lifetime.

"Mr. Mulder, I don't know anything about your relationship with your son." That much was true, she hardly knew a thing about Mulder's father. He spoke so little of him. But she had gathered the was a lonely man, without the comfort of the family he had forsaken long ago, tending to hide alone in his house in Massachusetts with the warmth of a bottle of Scotch when he needed company. "I do know that I've never worked with a more passionate or intelligent man than your son. His perseverance has kept me going despite myself, and his belief has saved me from danger several times over. I think that you should be very proud of the man Fox has turned into. I know that perhaps he hasn't followed the path that you intended for him, but he's a good man, an honest man. And I am not sorry that I put my job and career on the line to save him." 

She hoped his father understood, that he would come to realize just what an amazing person he had raised, despite everything that happened. Bill Mulder's face was inscrutable, but he had watched her with the same guarded carefulness that his son did from time to time, as if he were trying to pry into her mind and see how it worked, to judge if she were telling the truth or merely telling him what he wanted to hear. "I'm glad my son has you as his partner, Ms. Scully. I heard you were a woman of unimpeachable character. I'm glad to know you are Fox's friend and savior, too."

There was a hint of playfulness in his words, the subtle type of humor she had come to expect from the Mulder clan. "I'm glad I have a medical degree, sir. I thought it would go to waste as a field agent in the FBI, but Fox certainly keeps my skills keen."

"He always was prone to getting himself in trouble." The elder Mulder stood finally. He was shorter and much more sturdy than his son was. "Like I said, he wasn't sick a day in his life, but I've never known a child to have more broken bones and knocks to the head. Teena swore he'd kill himself before twenty-one."

"Not yet, sir, but it isn't for lack of trying. I'll keep patching him up, though." She rose to take the hand he offered her.

"His mother will thank you for it, as will I." He nodded gratefully. "Take good care of Fox, Ms. Scully."

"I'll try my best," she assured him. "Fox is down the hall, three doors down, to your left. He may be trying to ogle pretty nurses."

This did elicit a smile out of her partner's father, who laughed and shook his head as he turned back towards his son's room, heavy, unsure steps carrying him to the door. Scully watched until he knocked and entered. A part of her wanted to stand at the door, to listen to the conversation that went on within, to see what, if any bridges were built between the pair. But it was Mulder's life, and his father, and she couldn't get into the middle of that relationship. There were too many wounds there that she didn't understand, and it was best if she left well enough alone.


	85. Dumbo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder compares their work to _Dumbo_.

"It's good to be back," Mulder sighed in clear contentment, groaning as he stretched out in his office chair. He smiled happily till he saw his desk and frowned in disturbed confusion.

"Why does everything look different?" He picked restlessly at the blotter on his desk, eyes roving it as he tried to place what exactly was wrong.

"I cleaned it," Scully replied, setting a paper cup of coffee in front of him, black like he liked it. "I put away old files, in the proper place, I neatly stacked all of your newspapers, including the latest Lone Gunmen on top, and…" She smiled sweetly as she tapped a discreet looking folder. "All of your adult magazines are placed where I don't have to see them."

"But I could find things on my desk," he muttered petulantly, grabbing his coffee and sipping it in childish disgruntlement. "A man doesn't like his things messed with, Scully. When will women figure this out?"

"When you are partnered with another man in this office, perhaps they will understand." She sat behind her table and turned on her computer, ignoring the grumbles and sighs from the other side of the room. "A month of you out of my hair allowed me to get a great deal done. Things are filed, the office cleaned. I even answered all my back email and have our reports done. You should be out sick more often, I'm amazingly productive."

"I think the word you are looking for is bored." Mulder snorted as he picked up his phone and dialed the code for the voice mail. "I'll warn you the next time I get infected with alien viruses, perhaps you can clean my apartment and do my laundry."

"Maybe I'll take on what's behind that mysterious door in your living room, the one you warned me never to open."

"I'd have to be dying before I'd ask that of you." He placed the phone up to his ear, as something on the other end caught his attention. He frowned, his face interested as he rummaged around his desk, clearly not finding whatever it was he was looking for. "Where's my note paper?"

"Upper drawer, along with a pen." Scully turned her attention to the emails in her inbox.

She thought she heard him mutter something about "women" but chose to ignore it.

Whatever it was on the voice messages, he was clearly intrigued as he hung up the phone. "Know anything about elephants?"

"Elephants?" She blinked at her computer monitor blankly. "I know they are the largest, land mammals on Earth, they have a gestational period twice that of humans, they native to both Africa and Asia, and that elephants never forget." She turned to glance up at him. "I once had a stuffed toy elephant named Edgar."

"Why Edgar?" Mulder couldn't help himself asking as he reached for his basketball, the only thing in their office she hadn't moved, shuffled, or set aside anywhere.

"He looked like a balding great-uncle of mine named Edgar and conveniently his name began with an 'E'."

"Were you one of those strange kids who had to label and categorize all her toys and give them all same letter names like Daisy Dolly and Polly Parrot?"

"Daisy Dolly?" Scully snorted.

"What? Daisy isn't a bad name."

"Name someone in the world that's named Daisy?"

"Daisy Duck!" He smirked proudly.

"Does Disney even count?" She rolled her eyes.

"It does here. You watched _Dumbo_ right?" His expression turned mischievous as he leaned back again in his chair, spinning his ball on his middle finger lazily.

"The elephant who could fly? It's a favorite of my godson's."

"You see the part where Dumbo's mother gets mad at the kids who make fun of him and goes on a rampage?"

"Yeah." She frowned, wondering where Mulder was getting at. "Elephants in captivity have been known to do that, especially ones used in circus performances."

"What about one who was in a zoo and managed to run for miles without anyone noticing, only to die on the side of a lonely highway in Idaho from exhaustion?" He bounced the ball off the tile floor and caught it one handed. "Buildings and vehicles report damage and one construction worker was killed by an unseen entity that crushed his spine."

"Well, I suppose it's possible that damage could be inflicted by a rampaging elephant, but how in the hell would anyone miss it?"

"I don't know, but I want to find out." He spun his chair to his computer, booting up his machine and turning on his monitor.

"You want us to go to Idaho for a dead elephant?" She had just gotten him back in the office for God's sake and he was already making travel plans.

"What's wrong with Idaho? Don't you like potatoes?"

"Just fine, Mulder, but this isn't a matter for the FBI."

"It's an X-file!"

"Should I point out to you elephants don't disappear?" She glared at the back of his head as he carried on, ignoring all her protestations.

"Elephants can't fly either, but you know, _Dumbo_ proved it could happen."

"Thank you, Mulder. My work can now be defined by a children's animated movie. My life is complete."

Unrepentant, Mulder continued, humming in his corner something that sounded disturbingly like "Pink Elephants on Parade."


	86. Just A Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully questions the issue of collateral damage.

Mulder asked her to do the autopsy herself. Scully had agreed, but frankly, she didn't see much of a point of a full examination. It didn't take an autopsy to see what had murdered this kid. He looked as if he had been used as a cat toy for giant tiger, end of story.

"Subject is a twenty-one-year-old male named Brandon Morton. He appears to have been mauled by a large cat, quite possibly the tiger that is currently reported missing from the Fairfield Zoo." Scully stared at the still body, the boy's skin gray in death, a pasty bluish white that horribly exposed the raking gashes across his belly and back. The young man's vital organs had spilled out of the wounds to his abdomen and lay messily inside the internal cavity in a jumble of intestines that didn't quite fit back the way Scully knew they were supposed to. He was just a kid, just a smart-ass child who was trying to prove he was a tough man, saving the world and doing something morally right. He was someone's son. His parents who might not even know yet their child had died at the hands of one of the animals he was trying to save. Scully could imagine them, perhaps middle-class, quite prosaic, the type who indulged a liberally minded son and were bemused by his insistence that humanity was destroying the world through its neglect of the environment and the animals in it. Perhaps their son had adored animals as a child and kept a flock of them at the house. They may never have understood their child's passion for creatures, had looked the other way when, while in college he got involved with the Wild Again Organization. They probably didn't even know what the group actually did. In a million years, Scully doubted they could even imagine that their son would end up on her autopsy bay table.

"How's it coming?" The knock and Mulder's curious voice from the door of the lab startled her. She realized she had been staring at the body, not moving, probably for minutes.

"Well, it's not hard to see what killed him, Mulder. His neck is broken, signs around the face and scalp indicate that he was grabbed in the creatures teeth." She formed her tiny hands into the position of the bite marks. "He was then flung around like a rag doll. Tigers have amazingly strong jaws, enough to crack spines and skulls. It's a wonder this kid's head wasn't crushed like a melon." She frowned as she glanced down his ruined face towards his torn open abdominal cavity. "If the broken neck hadn't killed him, the blood loss and internal damage would have."

Mulder glanced towards the wound, but he refused to come in and study it. He grimaced in squeamish discomfort. "So you are fairly certain it was a tiger?"

"Short of me getting an expert from the zoo in here to compare teeth and claw marks, yes. Besides, he was found in the tiger's pen, and video shows him spraying the cameras shortly before Meechum and I heard the screaming." It was all too damn sad she thought, glancing at the boy's ruined face. "He was just a kid, Mulder, a macho kid full of bravado, trying to show off to his WAO buddies and doing something illegal and dangerous. Is Kyle Lang making a martyr of this boy, or has he even noticed he was killed trying to follow the precepts of the Wild Again Organization." She swallowed bitterly. "I mean, how different is Kyle Lang or that man we met up in the Washington woods last year from…from…Calvin Sistrunk, the man accused of killing those abortion doctors?"

"The abortion doctors were clones and were killed by something else," Mulder pointed out. Scully wasn't going to argue semantics with him on this.

"Whatever, the truth is that Calvin Sistrunk and his church illegally targeted and harassws legally operating doctors because they believe their moral imperative over-rides that of societies laws. And damn the consequences if an innocent dies, it's all in the name of their grand cause." She flushed angrily at the kid lying in front of her. "This boy had a family, Mulder. He believed in things. He could have changed the world if Kyle Lang's group hadn't got a hold of him. And now he's dead, for being stupid and idiotic and trying to do something that he, by all legal rights, shouldn't have been doing. And Lang can stand back, sanctimoniously pointing out how animals' lives are being destroyed while not even blinking when someone who answered to him was brutally killed. He's no different that Reverend Sistrunk who said that it was okay to kill an abortion doctor, because God would cast him to hell." She blinked angrily down at her now shaking hands. Why was she so worked up about this?

"I suppose everyone has a cause/" Mulder's voice was quiet and concerned from the safety of the autopsy bay doorway. "For some it's worth ignoring the rules for what they believe in. It's worth all the pain and suffering that comes with it."

"But at what price?" For a moment she realized that perhaps they were no longer just discussing environmental nuts, or religious zealots, or poor kids murdered far too young. "Is a personal cause really worth the retribution and potential harm overlooking those rules might cause? People get hurt, people die, and innocents are harmed, and is that any less important than the idea of a cause?"

"Its hard to say." Mulder's eyes darkened perceptibly and she had a feeling he as well sensed their conversation wasn't completely just an abstract, theoretical debate anymore. "You never want others hurt in these type of things. But its hard to know what is more important, the cause you care for or the people wrapped up in it."

They stared at each other for long, quiet moments, the body of Brandon Morton between them. There was a shift just now, a question now placed irrevocably in their relationship. Had she meant that? Why? She swallowed in a suddenly dry mouth as she realized it was a silent question that had been bothering her since that moment on the bridge a month ago when she had watched the woman she thought was Samantha Mulder plunge to her death.

Collateral damage.

"I'll get this body finished up." She tore her eyes away from his as she grabbed a scalpel from the metal tray nearby. "I want to have his body sewn up as best as I can manage before it goes to the funeral home. I want his parents to have their son for a funeral."

Mulder wisely didn't have a quip for her as he backed out of the door silently.


	87. I'm A Doctor, Not A Veternarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully steps out of her comfort zone...literally.

He had to be kidding. He just had to be.

"So it should be just like a normal autopsy, right?" He stared down from the top of the scaffold to where Willa Ambrose, the zoo's director, worked below the now upright corpse of the two-and-a-half ton elephant Ganesha. Scully watched her as she worked, then turned disbelieving eyes up towards her partner.

"I mean," Mulder shrugged, glancing down at her. "A human is an animal, right?"

"In theory there are a great deal of similarities," Scully grudgingly acknowledged. "Elephants, being mammals, have many of the same physiological traits as humans." She adjusted her gear uncomfortably. She was covered shoulder to toe in scrubs and coveralls to keep the general viscera of Ganesha's body cavity off of her, and had a headband flashlight attached to her forehead to allow her the ability to see and keep her hands free. But there was nothing covering her hair, and she felt her shoulders shiver as the idea of being up to her goggle-covered eyes in elephant parts ran through her mind. He was serious about this. And there was no way she could back out of it.

"Specificallym I want the uterus," Mulder reiterated, leaning over the side of the makeshift autopsy bay. "I want to see if Ganesha had ever been pregnant."

"Willa said they had never had a successful pregnancy in this zoo, least of all for Ganesha."

"I know," Mulder agreed. "But I have a theory."

"You always have a theory, Mulder, and I'm the one who's stuck trying to do the dirty work to prove it." She looked down the zoo director working. "I didn't go to veterinary school, Mulder. I'm not trained for this."

"No, but what's the difference between an elephant uterus and a human one?"

"Size," she snapped. Human blood, human tissue, this didn't bother her. It was different going head first into a creature so big. It was…well, for lack of a better term, just gross. She tugged angrily at the long, rubber gloves on her arms. "I hope you know what you are getting us into." 

I'm pretty sure what were going to find."

"This isn't exactly in my job description."

"And the next thing you know, they'll be doing it on MTV Sports" He clearly enjoyed that she was the one who had to go in and not himself. She hated him sometimes, she realized, leveling a cold, thin stare at him.

"OK, the elephant's cavity is clear. I'm ready for you," Willa called from below. Scully shot one more pleading look at Mulder, but he was clearly not feeling at all merciful.

She climbed down the scaffold where Willa waited, covered in various bodily fluids from the poor, dead Ganesha. Scully tried as best she could to keep her professional calm as she stepped down beside her.

"The knife is right there," Willa pointed out as she made her own, clumsy way up the scaffold Scully had just climbed down, up to where Mulder stood, watching in disgusted fascination. Bastard.

"Okay," she called after Willa, picking up the sharp scalpel, larger than any she had to wield for a human, and moved within the cracked ribs and open abdominal cavity of the one of the world's largest land mammals. She was a professional, a doctor by training, a pathologist by calling, she could handle standing in a cave made of nothing but flesh, bone, and dripping elephant parts. Who was she kidding? This was the most disgusting thing Mulder's ever asked you to do, ever, even worse than the flukeman. 

She swallowed hard as she adjusted the flashlight at her forehead and searched what would be the elephant's lower abdomen for the reproductive organs of Ganesha. It took some looking on her part. She wasn't familiar with the anatomy of the animal. And despite the fact that Willa had removed much of the internal organs in the abdomen, it took Scully several moments of prodding and moving to find the uterine tissue. It was even more disturbing trying to cut it all out. She pulled at the thick, heavy mass of tissue, the muscle ropy and tough in her small, slick hands as she tried to manage it and the scalpel at the same time. The tissue itself was huge, a slab of fibrous muscle that she had to sling across her left arm as she finished cutting it with her right hand. It slid and slipped wetly on the rubber covering her arm, as she tried to pin the uterus to her side. Once the tissue was free, she reached for the ovaries, detached from the uterus but found on either side of where the uterine tissue had once sat. The large organs were giant compared to the human variety, and Scully carefully laid each one on top of the uterine tissue, calling up to Mulder and Willa as she resisted the urge to wipe her sweaty brown with her now, elephant blood covered arm.

"Got them," she called as Willa began to clamber down to join her. "I need an exam table and a microscope to properly examine them."

"Over here," Willa pointed towards a medical lab beside the large, warehouse area they had used to prop up Ganesha's remains to do the autopsy. The zoologist helped Scully scoop up the remains to carry to the workspace, with its broader tables and better light. Behind her Mulder lithely climbed down the tall structure, his long nose wrinkling in mild disgust at the sight of the elephant's open abdomen, and its reproductive tissue slung across Scully's arms like a slab of beef roast.

"That is so disgusting," he muttered as he stared down at the organ, his face screwed up in revulsion.

"It's how all body parts look on the inside, Mulder. This one just happens to be bigger."

"I'm glad you have to do that, not me."

Scully stopped, causing Willa to nearly trip as she stared at her partner, freezing anger radiating off her petite form. He blinked at her in mild surprise.

"Mulder, there are times I really hate you." She moved once again with her load to the tables beyond. Next time, he got to crawl inside the strange body and do the autopsy while she had coffee. Then they could see who was laughing and who was disgusted.


	88. Man Will Save Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder reflects on Sophie's death and what Samantha told him.

Sophie was dead. Willa Ambrose's heartbroken sobs echoed across the empty farmland as a small crowd of curious onlookers gathered to watch the giant gorilla, lying crumpled in the middle of the field. They had tried to protect her and had not succeeded. For all of Willa's vain attempts, even to murder, it had happened anyway. Scully looked up at Mulder's somber face and turned wordlessly towards their car. They both climbed inside, Mulder behind the wheel as they turned down the long, ribbon of asphalt, back towards their motel and away from the keening sound of Willa's sobs. It felt, somehow, as if they had failed. She couldn't put words onto it exactly. They hadn't discovered, really, why it was these animals were disappearing. And Sophie, the gorilla who could use her hands to speak, was now the latest victim. They had no further explanation for it and why it was happening than they did days ago when they arrived. Now two people were dead, Willa Ambrose and Ed Meechum were most likely going to go to prison, and Scully had more questions than answers.

Poor Sophie, she thought helplessly as she glanced in the distance to where the people gathered. And poor Willa. Sophie had been her life, her everything. It hardly seemed fair. But then, what on any of these cases ever did seem fair?

"Why?" It was the one word she could formulate out loud.

"I don't know." Mulder didn't even having to ask her what she was referring to. He sounded as tired and defeated as she did. His head still bled from the wound near the scalp. She wanted to force him to lie down, to rest. For all she knew he had a concussion. She suspected that he'd only ignore her.

She decided to shift subjects to what had happened. "You said Sophie saw a light."

"I saw it too," he insisted quietly. "The light Sophie was talking about, the light she feared."

Scully didn't want to point out that the light Mulder thought he saw could have very likely been from his head wound. But his injury wouldn't explain Sophie's disappearance. "Perhaps it was other members of WAO, there to finish what Kyle Lang started?"

"Scully, Sophie was pregnant. She was afraid because she knew what had happened to the other animals, she knew why they were being taken." Mulder's jaw worked in quiet frustration. "Samantha…" 

He paused uncomfortable, stumbling over his sister's name. "The woman who claimed she was Samantha said that there were others who believe our stewardship of the planet is being forsaken and that others are coming to replace us. Aliens." His face was carefully schooled as he stared straight ahead.

"Aliens?" Scully tried to hide the worst of her sarcasm and color it instead with dubiousness. "Mulder, you are taking the word of...of…I don't know what that woman was." She ran frustrated fingers through her hair. "We still don't know all of the truths of what happened, of what those clones where, and you believe what she says about aliens coming to colonize the planet."

"Think about what Sophie said for a moment. What if some entity does believe we as humanity is neglecting our stewardship of the planet? Look at what we've done to it in just the last few hundreds years? Whole species have died off or are on the brink of extinction, rain forests cut down with no heed to the ecological damage, and we pump poisons into our air and water and wonder why it is our children are dying of cancer. Is it not feasible that should there be an alien intelligence out there, it might want to correct or protect the things that we, in our human ignorance, are unable to manage?"

"You are saying this as if the alien intelligence you speak of plans to take over this planet." She couldn't help the raised eyebrows, the disbelief. "Why would any alien intelligence come here and destroy what is already here rather than utilize it?"

"You act as if there is intelligent life in the universe outside of ourselves that it would have any respect for us at all. If we as humanity can't show respect for the other creatures we share a world with, how can we expect a foreign intelligence to respect us any more? Who is to say that our intelligence means anything to them?"

Science told Scully that there was no greater form of intelligence in the universe. Mulder was telling her it was a possibility. The tug of war in her mind caused her head to twinge painfully as she even thought about it. "What you are talking about is a holocaust, a complete wiping out of the human race. Why?"

"Because we are here. And maybe we are in their way."

"The way of what?" This was sounding more and more fantastic as Mulder talked it out. "What you are suggesting is straight out of a 1950's radio drama, a morality tale for television. It doesn't explain what happened to those animals back there or why they died."

"Doesn't it?" His gaze flickered sideways at her. "What if these animals are being preserved because we are killing them off? What if someone wants to save these species before its too late, to set themselves up as being the new guardians of this planet."

She tried to laugh off the idea; it was too ludicrous, too over the top even for Mulder. "This is the type of story that WAO would circulate, a warning to anyone who would dare to keep a pet cat or dog. Listen to yourself!"

"I know what the woman who said she was Samantha told me!"

"And we don't know what she was or who she was." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, staring at the straight road ahead. "Let's get back to the motel. I want to look at that head wound of yours."

"I'm not delusional, Scully."

She wanted to say that she wasn't suggesting anything of the sort, but the words wouldn't come out of her mouth.


	89. Why Am I Not Surprised?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is unpleasantly woken up.

_Ring!_

Go away, go away, go away, go away….

 _Ring!_  
If she didn't open her eyes, it wasn't real.

_Ring!_

Silence. Blessed silence. Perhaps, given a moment or two, a return to sleep….

_Ring._

There was a special place in hell for Fox Mulder, Scully decided, as she reluctantly reached for her telephone. There would be beautiful women there he couldn't touch and pizza that would turn to cardboard in his mouth. There would always be static on the television, never any Knicks games. He'd have the mundane sound of wiretapped surveillance playing through loudspeakers at full volume, forever!

"Hello," she managed to grunt as she tried to sit up in her bed, unable to quite blink her eyes open in the semi-dark of her room.

"Sorry for waking you, Scully." Mulder as always was right to the point.

"I wasn't sleeping, Mulder. I was contemplating the bullet I have sitting on my nightstand with your name on it." She uttered this with all the seriousness of a cold-blooded murderer. He knew she was lying. Her gun was in the other room, again. She would never learn.

There was something of a chuckle on the other end, but when Mulder spoke, he wasn't laughing. "I need you in Bethesda as soon as you can get here."

She frowned. This time of the morning Bethesda would easily be at least an hour away, if not longer. "Why?"

"I'll tell you when you get here," he muttered quietly. Where was he, especially at…

She looked at her clock. Six-thirty in the morning? A horrible thought occurred to her causing her eyes to shoot open.

"This doesn't have to do with Samantha, does it?" It had only been weeks since the horrible incident on the bridge in Bethesda. He had said little about the woman or the incident since returning from Alaska. She feared he was there again, looking for some sort of clue, something that told him that it wasn't all a lie.

"No." She couldn't tell if his response was snappish or embarrassed. "No, I'm at the Naval hospital. I received information regarding an incident the Navy is keeping hush hush, one that I need your expertise in."

"Mulder, my father was a rear admiral, but that doesn't mean he told me any secrets about how the Navy works," Scully admonished him as she stretched in her bed. "Frankly, you'd be better off speaking to some of the people my father knew, not me."

"That's not the expertise I need. I'm at a hospital, I need the medical kind."

She blinked slowly at her ceiling. Of course! She felt foolish now. That would be the reason if he were standing in the Naval hospital. "Can you at least tell me what sort of thing we are dealing with?" Please, God, not another alien virus.

"Not over the phone. Think you can get here in an hour?"

Not in this lifetime, she snorted softly. "Make it two. Go find coffee somewhere. I'll be there as soon as I can." She sighed heavily as she clicked off the phone and looked up at the ceiling. As much as she enjoyed her work, as much as she loved the search and the quest along with Mulder, there were times when she really resented the hell that he assumed she would drop everything to run wherever he needed her, whenever he needed her. He may have no life, nothing he loved outside of his quest, his work, his X-files, but she did…didn't she?

This thought gave her pause, even as it fluttered through her slowly waking mind. What sort of life did she have outside of work now at days? She ran through the short list of her social activities in the months since she had returned from her abduction. She had her weekly dinners with her mother and sister, and of course she and Missy always met on Thursday nights alone to do something together. Once every few months she tried to get a hold of Ellen to do something with the only one of her college set of friends she even still talked to. But Ellen's son Trevor was getting older and his school activities and sports involvement made it hard and hard to pin Ellen down for anything, especially given the erratic nature of Scully's own schedule. Most evenings, if she wasn't working late at the office, she was working late at home, pouring over research journals, the occasional book of the strange and weird that Mulder sent her way for cases, and then the never-ending pile of X-files she tried to familiarize herself with when she wasn't working on anything pending. If she was lucky she got a chance to read a good book and soak in the tub before bed, only to start it all over again in the morning. How very sad.

Well, not sad, she reasoned to herself as she pulled herself up in bed. It wasn't exactly sad. She didn't dislike her life at all. She had a successful career, work she enjoyed, and yes, she was put in harms way on more than a few occasions. But how many people could say they tried to puzzle out the type of cases she and Mulder worked on? It wasn't all bad really, and she imagined at some point in the future she would of course think about other things. Maybe even consider, a family to settle down to and leave Fox Mulder on his obsessive search for the truth. After she found her own answers, however, after she found the truth about what had happened and what they did to her.

Which wouldn't be today, sad to say. She sighed as she pushed back her covers and forced herself to stand. Perhaps her life was slightly limited nowm and it was by choice. But at least it wasn't as limited as Mulder's, reduced to take out food and whatever sports _du jour_ was on at the moment, and if lacking that, bad science fiction movies and porn. Mulder had no contact with anyone she knew of outside of herself and perhaps the Lone Gunmen. She didn't even know if he was bothering to date anyone at the moment.

How very sad, she thought as she stumbled towards her bathroom, her muzzy thoughts swirling back to her partner. Fox Mulder was certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, an unattractive person. And he was witty, funny, intelligent, polite, the sort of man most mothers would love their daughters dating...well, except for the raging guilt over his sister's disappearance and his whole-hearted belief in the existence of extra-terrestrials, any mother would want for a daughter. Granted, he could be self-centered, thoughtless, and endlessly irritating, completely self-absorbed at times, and so focused on his work that he couldn't see beyond the narrow blinders of his own world. He was convinced that no one could possibly understand the secrets that he alone was privy to. That part of him irritated the hell out of her. Mulder had the nasty tendency of believing that if you didn't agree with him, obviously you didn't get it. And it wasn't that she didn't get it, Scully fumed as she washed her hair and rinsed it out. It was that she thought his supposition was wrong. But outside of that, she thought, he would be a nice catch for some open-minded young woman out there. Hell, if she thought Missy could be pinned down for half-a-moment, she might flip the tables on her sister's knowing smiles and pointed questions and suggest Mulder for her. After all, the two of them were of the same mindset. 

Of course, she frowned as she turned off her shower; Mulder's intensity was a bit much for her sister. Still, if she could hack it with her Scully fortitude, Missy could. On second thought, Mulder with her sister didn't sound that great after all. She snorted as she climbed out of the bath and padded back into her room, dripping wet and grabbing the first suit she could reach in her closet. Frankly, she thought to herself, Mulder needed someone who would put up with him, stick by him when he was being at his worst and live with the quirks that made Fox Mulder who he was. Someone who would put up with his obsessions, his self-absorption, his need to throw himself into harms way again and again, and to shake him off, stick him back on his feet, and watch him do it again. Scully didn't know if any such person exists in the world for Mulder. The idea of him growing older and older, stuck alone in a world surrounded by his personal guilt and desire for absolution was depressing to her. He would turn into his father, the sad, pained, grieving Bill Mulder, a man so regretful of the decisions he made that he shut out his son and former wife and hid away unless called on by either. And that was sad. She didn't want Mulder to become that someday. Though, she highly doubted that it would ever occur to Mulder to be anything else. At this rate he would simply just drive himself into case after case till one of them eventually did him in. And one of these days, Scully knew, she wasn't going to be able to bring him back, no matter how many medical miracles she pulled out of her pocket.

Speaking of medical miracles, she thought as she glanced at the clock, Mulder would start climbing the walls soon if she didn't get out of her place and to Bethesda quickly. As usual with this job, duty seemed to call as she reached for her hair dryer. Perhaps, she thought idly to herself, she would bring up to Mulder that he should take some personal time, go do something with himself that didn't involve aliens and conspiracies. The break would do him good, or it would drive him to insanity with boredom. She shrugged, realizing how much Mulder detested being still. Why couldn't he be like a normal man and go fishing, or something?


	90. We're On A Boat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder proves woefully inept at nautical maps.

Wormholes? Scully glared at Mulder as he even suggested it. Wormholes on earth? She wanted to rail at him that such a thing was only theoretically possible at best and that to recreate such a thing on earth would take more energy than could possibly be produced, let alone the creation of technologies not even known to engineering science at the moment. She stopped herself. It would do her little good to even bring up common sense and rational thought to him at this moment. He wanted to believe that there was a wormhole out in the middle of the North Sea and sometimes it was best to just let him go on believing that until proven otherwise.

"And that's what you think happened to Lieutenant Harper?" She tried to go along with it but didn't even sound convincing to herself.

"I'll find out soon enough." Mulder had the air of excitement about him. Why did she feel so nervous about that? "I'm booked on an 8:30 flight to Norway."

That soon? She frowned. "Have you let Skinner in on this?"

The mischievous glint in Mulder's eye told her that she was silly for even thinking that. "I'm giving myself a 24-hour head start before I give Skinner my report. I want this one myself." He began gathering his files, all the things he would want with him on the case. Of course, she thought as she watched him. Because there was no way in hell Skinner would agree to Mulder chasing wormholes in the North Atlantic with nothing more than a theory and some pictures from a supposedly secret Naval mission. She looked back down at the map. What Mulder suggested was ludicrous, impossible, and yet her father and his old buddies from the Navy had strange, fantastic tales of things found in the corners of the ocean, stories she had believed as a girl, but later found out were only tales told for her amusement. That didn't mean that there couldn't be some modicum of truth to them if one went out in the middle of the ocean and looked.

Did Mulder even know the first thing about an ocean?

"I'm going with you!"

Mulder stared at her, startled.

"If that really was Lieutenant Harper, I want to know what happened to him." She crossed her arms in front of herself, daring him to challenge her on this. "Besides, have you even been out in the middle of the sea?"

"I've been fishing before!" He scowled darkly. "Scully, I can't have you out there. You don't know what it could be."

"Oh and you do, with your theory of wormholes. I thought I was the one with the degree in Physics over here."

"And I read your senior thesis and I told you it was quite good," Mulder rejoined without skipping a beat. "But really, Scully, if something happens..."

"Mulder, I grew up with a Navy captain, I have brothers in the Navy, the ocean is in my blood. Besides, do you even know how to read this?" She reached for and held up the nautical map he had been looking at.

"It's a map, Scully, how hard is it?"

"Do you?" She raised a speculative eyebrow.

"I'm sure that once I get into one of the ports and find a ship's captain..."

"And do you even know what you are looking for in a ships captain?"

"Scully, all I need is someone to drive a boat."

"Drive a boat? Cars are driven, ships are sailed." God, he was worse than helpless!

She saw the glimmer in his hazel-green eyes. He was laughing at her.

"You know, I'm not letting you go into this alone, Mulder. So you might as well call the airline and book another flight for me as well."

"I had a feeling you might say that," he sighed heavily. "I booked one anyway, just because I thought it would save time and an argument later."

"Most perceptive for a man who didn't want me coming."

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to use it." He rolled his eyes. "Bring your long johns, Scully, it's cold in Norway this time of year."

"It's nearly spring, Mulder, it can't be that cold."

"That's what they said on the Titanic." He winked at her as he moved to the door. "See you at the airport. Make sure to bring your Norwegian-to-English dictionary."

"I think they speak enough English there for us to get by."

Mulder look skeptical as he rounded the doorway


	91. Old Sea Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder tries his hand at electrical wiring.

The _Zehar_ disappeared thickly into the fog that enshrouded the USS _Argent_ , oblivious to its captain's loud shouts and curses. Henry Trondheim turned on Mulder, spitting as he glared at her partner.

"They took my God damned ship, Agent Mulder! How the hell are we supposed to get back?" The captain glared down at Mulder with eyes filled with angry disdain. "There is no way this hunk of metal is going anywhere. It's a wonder it's not at the bottom of the sea and our one hope out of this just got taken."

Even the captain's young mate, Halverson, stood transfixed with worry at the angry ships captain. Scully half feared he would turn physically violent in a moment and felt her fingers reaching for her weapon.

"Then maybe we should see if we can get anything on this ship working, Trondheim…like maybe the radio." Mulder replied evenly, not back down from the captain's angry bluster. "Unless you like the thought of being stuck out in the middle of a dense fog with no way of getting off a corroding ship."

Trondheim's face darkened like a thundercloud, but he back down, slowly. Scowling fiercely, he turned on his mate, snapping something at him in what Scully guessed was Norwegian, and storming towards the creaking, rusting metallic stairs that led to the ships decks below. Halverson watched his captain with wide, frightened eyes, before shooting terrified frowns at both herself and Mulder. He then scurried to follow Trondheim downstairs, his pale face ashen in the growing gloom about them. 

Scully released a long, slow breath as she turned to Mulder; lowering the fingers she had just hovering at her holster. "Who do you think took Trondheim's ship?" She frowned into the encompassing mist that had swallowed the _Zehar_ as if she had never existed.

"Who knows? Pirates, scavengers out here trying to collect on the _Argent_ , hoping to take some of it home, trapped out on this wreck?" He kicked at the siding that edged the boat, the steel groaning and bending against the rivets that held it in place. "This ship was built in Newport News, Virginia in 1991, Scully. I read the specs on her. She's not even five years old yet. These ships last at minimum thirty." He turned to look it over, first towards the port, then towards the stern. "You can't tell me something strange isn't going on here."

"Obviously it is," she reluctantly and begrudgingly ceded. "But the question isn't if something is going on here, its why this is happening?" She brushed past him, down the way that Trondheim came, back towards the decks and hopefully towards the stairwell that led to the bridge and communications decks. "And more importantly, is it going to effect us before help comes." She effortlessly wended her way through the darkness of the _Argent_ to bridge, looking immediately for the radio. She could hear Mulder shuffling behind her, his taller height ducking under the low bulkheads as flipped on his flashlight.

"Dad used to command one of these when I was young, not even in school. When it docked in San Diego he would let us have free reign over it." She found the radio on the far side of the bridge. "There's no power on this thing from what I can tell, but I don't know if that's because the generator's dead or because whatever is eating the ship is also eating the wiring."

"Only one way to find out." Mulder moved behind her, setting down his flashlight, and kneeling on the floor in front of the control panel. He reached into one of his jean pockets, pulling out what looked like a Swiss Army Knife from hell. It was a utility knife of some sort and Mulder flipped open a blade and began prizing the panel off the front carefully. It popped loudly in the quietness of the bridge, clattering to the floor as Mulder stretched his long form out onto his side, and grabbed the flashlight from where he set it. He scooted enough to stick his head inside the panel and to see what was going on with the wiring beneath.

"Yech," he muttered, clearly disgusted at something. 

Scully was almost too afraid for him to elaborate. "What is it?" 

"Something's build up on the wiring." He frowned, reaching for his knife again. "Give me a second, let me see if I can move things around."

"Do you know what you're doing, Mulder?" She wasn't so sure she trusted him with metal knives anywhere near electrical devices.

"I took a course shop in high school."

"You went to a prep school in New England, Mulder, you are such a liar."

"Okay, so maybe I've watched Frohicke and Byers rewire their offices a couple of times."

"You are really starting to scare me." She sighed as he laughed at her.

"Don't worry, I'll scream loudly if I electrocute myself." He began to fiddle under the panel, his long fingers working at something. She watched him in silence for several long moments, her thoughts straying to this forgotten US Navy Destroyer, its prematurely aged crew, and the fear in the faces of the native, Norwegian captains while still in port.

"Perhaps you are on to something here, Mulder." She glanced at the state of the bridge. Everything on it looked high tech and state of the art, the best that the US Defense budget could buy, but it was corroded, moth eaten, as if it had been left to rot for decades. "I think there is something going on with the environment here, something the Navy is perhaps running an experiment on and doesn't want anyone to know about."

"An experiment on what?" Mulder hissed painfully as he jerked his hand back for a brief moment. She frowned at him in concern, but when he continued with his work, she shrugged, finishing her thought.

"Well its long been believed that the Bermuda Triangle is nothing more than an area of ocean that is just prone to rough seas and weather, hence why the ships go down so frequently there. The legends were built up out of nothing more than a freak intersection of various weather patterns. Perhaps this area of the North Sea has an atmospheric phenomenon that causes the thick fog and deterioration. There's nothing particularly strange or abnormal about that."

"That doesn't explain why the locals believe there is a god here who came from a rock that fell from the sky," Mulder replied, not looking out from his work.

"It could just be the sight of an meteor falling or even a volcanic eruption. Remember, we aren't far from the rift that separates the North American plate from the European plate, geologically."

"Maybe." Mulder jerked on something hard and there was a ripping sound. Scully wasn't so sure that was necessarily a good thing. "while your explanation is perfectly reasonable and with merit, Scully, I think that it is something else totally off the wall. They believe a god crashed here long ago and warned them to stay away from this place. Now it is a center of atmospheric changes so drastic that a ship that was supposedly built four years ago now looks as if its about to fall apart in the middle of the ocean." 

He pulled his head out long enough to glance up at her pointedly, his eyes shining. "What does that sound like to you?"

"I know what it sounds like to you," she muttered sourly. "Why is it you must jump to aliens as your first, last, and only line of conclusion? You have no evidence whatsoever that this has to do with aliens, spaceships, or anything of the sort. And to come out here, to drag me out here under the pretense that you would find something…."

"You drug yourself out, Scully. I was more than happy leaving you at home." He stuck his head back under the console. She smacked his knee, hard, causing him to wince.

"I'm saying that it's far more likely a natural phenomenon, perhaps something having to do with the minerals coming up from the Earth's core. I think that's a far more likely suggestion that this being the site of an ancient, downed UFO that is somehow creating wormholes in the middle of the North Sea."

"Everyone's entitled to their opinion, Scully." His tone was that schooled, practiced reasonableness he took when he thought she was dead wrong, but was tired of arguing the point with her. Somehow this tact was even more irritating than just laughing at her and telling her she was an idiot. It wasn't that Mulder thought that she was an idiot. He just didn't want to have to listen to her anymore. If they weren't stuck, marooned on a ship that hardly looked as if it could move, she might have it out with him anyway. But it was more important to see if they could get the radio work, to see if they could call for help and get out of there. Petty arguments with her partner about what may or may not be going on could wait for another time.

"Give it a try," Mulder called from inside the console.

Nothing flickered to life on the board, but she picked up handheld speaker anyway. She pressed the buttons, but it gave her only silence.

"Nope," she sighed as Mulder toggled underneath the console again. 

"All right, try it again."

"No," she replied as Mulder pulled his head out again, clearly frustrated at their lack of progress. "What is it?"

"It's caked with that same residue that's covering everything."

"So we can't even send a distress signal." Scully swallowed hard at the fear that up till now she had successfully kept at bay, now it hung between the two of them as she met Mulder's grave eyes.

How were they supposed to get out of this?


	92. Sands of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully connects with a friend of her brother.

Captain Barclay's condition defied all explanation that Scully could make. She stared in horror at the man who was only four years older than her, who was only slightly older than Mulder. He looked as if he could be their grandfather, older even. He coughed and wheezed ominously as Scully sat by the cot she had prepared for the obviously aged captain, his hands shaking from a combination of whatever his body was going through and the detoxification of the alcohol he had been living on since the moment his crew had mutinied and abandoned the ship.

"How are you feeling?" She reached cool fingers to the man's aged, leathery brow. He snorted roughly, though, she couldn't tell if it was out of humor or anger.

"I feel like I'm over a hundred years old, Agent Scully," he muttered in a voice as grating as sandpaper over granite. "I've felt better."

"I'm sure." She studied him critically for a long moment. "We'll get you out of here, back to Bethesda. That's where they took your crew. I'm sure they can take…"

"They don't know what is going on here," Barclay snapped fractiously, glaring at her. "You don't even know what's going on here."

"I'm trying to figure it out," she replied smoothly, ignoring her patient's frightened, furious tone. "I'm a medical doctor, Captain, and I have had experience in internal medicine." Granted, most of her experience had been of late with the strange, alien virus that Mulder had been infected with. "I can assure you I'll do everything I can to get you home safely.

The captain's bright eyes stared at her for a long moment, before softening apologetically. "I'm sorry." He murmured as he shifted in the cot. "I'm sorry, I…I know you'll try. But don't make promises you can't keep, Agent Scully. I know I may not make it…I know…I…I can feel it." He let out a rattling sigh as his stooped shoulders hunched in on themselves.

In her bones Scully wanted to tell him otherwise, but she as a doctor she couldn't. It would be unfair and cruel to promise him something she could no more guarantee than she could that they would even get out of there. She sighed heavily, watching as the captain's increasingly labored breathing shook his chest, the sound of it rattling through the bunks as he lay there, shivering.

"I knew a Scully once, back at Annapolis." Barclay mentioned it in the way people have when they are looking for anything to talk about that isn't the situation they were in at the moment. "He and I went to school together. Bill Scully. Tall guy, played football. He's a commander on a carrier out in the Persian Gulf. Maybe you are related."

"We are. Bill's my elder brother." She thought of her elder brother, the one sibling she had the thorniest relationship with. It wasn't that she didn't care for Bill, but the two of them were so much alike there stubborn personalities often butted heads.

"Then you're the Admiral's daughter, huh?" Barclay's eyes sparkled in recognition.

"The youngest one, yeah, though there's another boy younger than me. Charlie, he went to Annapolis, too. You probably just missed him."

"I thought Bill talked about a kid brother. I remember your old man. I did my first assignment on the last ship he commanded before they booted him up to Rear Admiral. Never saw a man more unhappy about a promotion in his life."

"That was Ahab." Scully felt the familiar pang. It had lessened a great deal in the year since his death, and it only hurt every now and again. "Dad always loved the sea. I don't think he could ever see himself as anything other than a captain, behind the helm of a ship. But…well, things changed with the end of the Cold War, and you know how it goes." Her father had hated the fact he had been promoted out, she knew he had. He would have died commanding a ship if he could have.

"I heard he passed away, though."

"Yeah, heart attack." She smiled through the sadness. "He went quickly, that was all I could ask for."

"Lucky him," Barclay muttered with a touch of envy. "Better than dying slowly, not knowing what is going on." He shivered again, huddling under the woolen blanket that was the Navy standard issue. "You know I never thought about time till this happened. Never thought about anything more than the weeks and months till I was back in port. My wife was always warning me about all the time I was missing out with her and the kids." 

He frowned, his prematurely aged face creasing deeply. "My oldest is eight. She never liked it when I left for duty. I always told her that Daddy would be home soon. To me, soon was close enough. I guess for an eight-year-old soon is forever. And that's nothing compared to how short life is when you realize that you've lost time, lost everything, and you won't see any of them again." His rheumy eyes met Scully's tearfully. "A blink of an eye, that's all it's been. A blink of an eye and I won't see them ever again."

The blink of an eye…the span of one breath. Scully felt her lungs expand and contract as images of her father dressed in white danced through her head. All the things that one wanted to tell a loved one, things left undone, things not shared, lost forever as life passed you buy, lost in the tumble of the little, everyday, mundane things and the secret, unfulfilled longings and desires. Her father had not ever told her in life how he had been proud of her, despite her choices in life, and she hadn't had a chance to tell him she loved him before he died to tell him goodbye. They had thought they had all the time in the world. Time was such a short, precious thing. Scully had been given the blessing of a second chance at it, another pass to do what she wanted and had to before her end inevitably came. And she felt time slipping through her fingers, like sand cupped in her palm. Time to find the truths about what happened to herself, to Mulder's sister, what exactly was going on with the alien virus. And in her need, her desire to find these truths, their truths, she and Mulder's, what was getting away from her? Already she had lost her father. Her siblings, one by one, had moved off into their own lives. Even Melissa, the only other Scully child who stayed close to home was more often than not found floating on the wind of adventure. The world was slipping out of Scully's grasp, as time spun away from her. Would she look back at some point in the future, even the near future, like Captain Barclay and regret the choices she had made, the chances she had that she let slip through her fingers. Would time come back to haunt her as she looks back on the chances she should have had with lovers, perhaps a husband and children, with the family she so rarely saw anymore? Her father had told her that it wasn't her time, that she still had more to do. There was Mulder's quest, now her own as well. When it was said and done would there be any time left over for her?

"It's always hard." Barclay's voice rattled beside her, breaking through her gloomy thoughts, "It's hard to know in those moments when you think the world is going perfectly that it can all be taken away in the flash of an eye. I came out here thinking this would be a routine mission that we'd turn around and be home in Norfolk. I didn't think about things I would have liked to say to my wife, to my kids, to my family."

Scully wanted to tell him he'd get home to tell his family all those things anyway, but somehow she doubted those words even as she thought them.

"Maybe," she began, her eyes unexpectedly burning with tears that threatened to be shed. "My mother is still connected through the Naval wives organizations. If the worst was to happen, perhaps I could get a hold of your family and tell them for you."

Barclay's bright, feverish eyes met hers, his aged face relaxing into something akin to relief. "Would you do that? Get a hold of Tricia? Tricia Barclay, Dakota and Maddy are the girls. I…I want them to know I died performing my duty, at my post, and that I was thinking of them and I loved them, more than words."

How many times had Ahab ever had to have this conversation with her mother, Scully wondered, as the unshed tears spilled quietly down her face. "I'll let them know. I promise."

"Thank you." He relaxed into his bunk, closing his eyes as he settled against the pillow. There was a peace about his ravaged face now, a smile across the cracked and dry lips. "Bill always said he had pretty sisters. I didn't think one was an angel."

Despite her tears, Scully laughed, wiping impatiently at them. "I don't think Bill would ever say I was an angel. Maybe he'd say that about our sister, Melissa, but never about me. I was always the hellion."

"Bill could be a bit of a stuck-up prick," Barclay chuckled, rasping. "Good man though. Tell him I said so when you speak to him again."

If she got to speak to him again, Scully's dark thoughts whispered. "I will."


	93. Growing Old Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully discuss growing old together.

Scully stared at the pieces of the broken jar, her mouth watering at the liquid now spilled across the rusting, ruined floor of the cabin where they sat. If she had the tears to spare she might have cried in sheer frustration at all of this, but she had no more tears. Her body was too saturated by the salts that consumed it. She glanced from it up to Mulder's wasted face.

"Well I suppose that solves that argument for us." He sighed heavily as his now aged body heaved back on the bunk. From somewhere deep within the ship Scully thought she could hear someone shouting, most likely Trondheim. If the outer hull had given way, chances were the sewage system was backlogging into where Trondheim was. Even if Scully cold get to that end of the ship, it was doubtful she could even get to him before he drowned to death anyway. So much for those who suffered from the sin of greed, she thought to herself, perhaps a little uncharitably. But as Mulder's last chance and hope slicked the floor beneath them, she couldn't give a damn about fairness. She collapsed at the table where her notes sat, staring despondently at her slanted,and loopy writing in the dim lamp light in front of her.

"You know, Scully, I always wanted to grow old together with a good woman." Mulder chuckled softly from the folds of the cot where he had settled. "I just didn't think I would grow old with you this soon."

She couldn't help but laugh at this statement, a harsh, somewhat hysterical laugh. "Would it be bad of me, Mulder, if I say I had never thought I'd grow old with you at all?"

He snorted and smiled on his now heavily creased face. "I wouldn't take offense to that, now that I've seen what would have happened to me once my boyish good looks had gone." He grimaced painfully. "I look worse than my Grandpa Kuiper did."

"I never thought you were very vain." She leaned her own lined face against one hand, watching him in the play of shadows from the lamp.

"I didn't either till I looked in the mirror," he admitted.

"I stopped looking yesterday."

"Oh, you aren't so bad for a 90 plus-year-old woman. I'd still ask you out."

"That's so comforting." She snorted. Somehow, though she hated to admit it, it was. "I don't know, if I reached this point in my life naturally, I would have hoped that I had a family around me to take care of me and a lifetime full of happy memories to fall back on when looks had gone and I was too frail to continue working."

Mulder was quiet in his bunk, so quiet, for a moment she panicked. She thought perhaps he fallen asleep, lost consciousness, or was beginning to slip into a coma that she would not be able to awaken him from. She leaned forward frantically, but he was awake in the cot, his eyes open, as he blinked up to the ceiling above them.

"I hadn't given it much thought, getting this old. I didn't think I'd ever make it to look this old." He turned his head sideways, watching her with dark, hooded eyes. "I'm sure from my recent hospital stays, you've more or less gathered why I would think that."

"It's not for lack of trying to keep you alive on my part."

"I know. I guess it never occurred to me that I would ever grow old, really. That I'd ever watch as my body failed and everything around me changed. And if I did grow old, I always thought it would be alone." He stated this as a matter of fact, as if it had never occurred to him that anything else would possibly happen.

Scully's heart lurched at that statement, despite herself. "You're growing old now, Mulder. And I'm here." She didn't know why she felt she had to say it, had to somehow reassure him that he wasn't alone. Obviously he wasn't, she was sitting there right beside him, watching helplessly as he aged before her eyes.

"I know." A look of deepest appreciation shined from his eyes as he watched her. "And I can't imagine anyone I would want here more with me. I'm just sorry I drug you into this." He waved a hand around the rusting, sinking ship. "I'm sorry I allowed you to come out here."

"We had this discussion in DC. I made you bring me out here, and I'm glad I did." She held up the meticulous notes she had made of their cases, of the blood work she had done. "These notes will go on to explain just what is going on here. Our condition can be treated."

It had to be treated, she thought. She had to believe someone was coming. But she saw the fear that lurked in Mulder's eyes, the same fear that was in Barclay's just before he died. She refused to accept it from her partner. "We'll get home, Mulder, you'll see. And you'll get better."

"I hope so." He sighed so heavily. "There's still so much for us to do, so much work to be done. It just isn't our time yet."

It wasn't their time. As much as she didn't fear what was beyond, she had to agree, it wasn't their time, and she felt it wasn't. But short of an untimely rescue, she had no idea what to do, what to tell him. Their supplies were exhausted and judging from the ominous sounds being made around the ship it wouldn't be able to last out on the high seas for much longer.

"I'm glad you're here with me, Scully," he breathed softly. "I didn't want you to come with me, I was afraid for you. But in the end I'm glad you are here. It makes this just a bit easier, you know." He reached a wrinkled, large hand out for hers, palm up. She grasped the dry, cool skin in her own, squeezing it as tightly as she could manage.

"I'll make sure you don't have to grow old alone, Mulder," she whispered.


	94. Caged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully must deal with a very bored Mulder.

It was the fifth time that day the office phone rang. Scully rolled her eyes as she reached for it, glad she had finally moved it to her work space from Mulder's still empty desk. "Scully."

"I take that back, what I said up in Worchester, when I asked you not to put me in a nursing home." Mulder had called her every hour, on the hour, since 8 AM, the time she suspected the nurses at Bethesda Naval Hospital had actually allowed him to start calling. "I think I will now just perform suicide one day when I realize I'm to old for this shit, and will put a bullet through my chin."

"You know that might not kill you," she replied dryly as she continued to work on the notes she was trying desperately to piece together for their very irate boss. Skinner had been less than thrilled with their excursion to the North Sea, but had been particularly irritated with her for allowing it to continue when all good, common sense had told her this was foolish, crazy, and idiotic, Skinner's words, not hers. To make matters worse, the Navy was know asking the FBI why two of their agents were poking around in an area they had no need to be in, on board a ship that they had no way of knowing about, and Scully wasn't sure she had the ability to give her boss the sort of answer that would appease the Department of Defense of the Navy at all. Mulder was missing all of this, of course, still in the hospital while his immune and endocrine system recovered from the most recent shock it had suffered in the last month. And in typical Mulder fashion, he was driving her up a wall. Not content that he should be confined to the hospital, he had to harass her as well.

"I've planned for the idea that perhaps my attempted suicide might fail. I was thinking perhaps a cyanide pill just before I do it."

"At this point, Mulder, if you really wanted to end it all before you got old, I could assist you with that."

"Am I interrupting you?" He knew he was. She sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Why can't you just eat jell-o and watch ESPN and leave me in peace? I have Skinner on my ass, thanks to you, and I'm having to be the one to explain our little jaunt up north and why it is that we both came back looking sixty years older than we should." Thankfully, the Navy at least had fallen all over themselves thanking Scully for the research she had done on the condition and assuring Skinner that not all of their time fishing two wayward agents out of the North Sea was wasted. "As best as the Navy can tell, it is the site of an ancient meteor impact that, coupled with the environment in the harsh North Sea, creates a pocket where the water is so super-saturated with salt that it creates the atmospheric conditions we witnessed there."

Nice, simple, scientifically plausible, an easy, sane explanation. She counted down the seconds till Mulder would begin shooting it down. She didn't even make it to five.

"Do you seriously buy that, Scully?" Mulder snorted derisively.

"What, you suspect a wormhole made by an alien spacecraft? Wormholes don't explain the build up of salts in our bodies, nor the cellular damage done to our systems. Between your seasickness, Mulder, and your already recent bout of illness with the virus in Alaska, your system couldn't handle the abuse it was taking, and you were hit harder than even I was." Scully still couldn't slather on enough moisturizer to make her skin feel soft again.

"I'm not denying you science, Scully." He said this as if her science was somehow different from the science of the rest of the world. "I'm saying I don't by the Navy's explanation for the scientific evidence you presented. There is something more going on out there, and we both know it."

"I agree, Mulder, but as the ship is gone now and the Navy has no desire to return to retrieve what is left from the bottom of the North Sea, we will never know the details, will we?"

"Perhaps if we got a sample…"

"Mulder, can you just stop!" She snapped into the phone, harsh words ringing in the empty office loudly. She paused as she rubbed the aching spot just between her eyebrows, wondering how it was he could get to her so easily sometimes. "There is no going back to the North Sea. The Navy has barred the area from transit, and you won't get anyone who will go back there looking for it. It's done! Just leave it."

Why was he always like this, she wondered to herself? It was the same with the worms in Alaska; he wanted to return for evidence, despite the dangers inherent in such a journey. And as much as she, as a scientist, would love to understand more fully what it was going on up there and why it had that effect on the human body, even she had a limit to how willing she was to push herself and others into something so potentially dangerous.

"Mulder, you almost died…again. That's the second time in as many months, and your body had hardly recovered from the last bought. Just stop long enough to get better again before you try to kill yourself." She wondered if his mother ever felt this way about her son. Was this what Bill Mulder had meant when he said his ex-wife had thought her son would die before he was twenty-one?

"So you, the scientist, are willing to allow something so momentous to slip through your fingers?"

"I had an epiphany, Mulder," she replied heavily, hoping he would understand her words. "That time is very short and all too precious for people like us. And sometimes it's smarter to make decisions that will give us more time to spend doing those things in our lives that we want to do before we die so we can go to the afterlife without regrets. And if that means I have to let go the scientific discovery of the century so I can tell my mother and siblings I love them one more time before I die, then so be it. The water is there, Mulder. It's not going anywhere. Let someone else who is foolhardy enough go up there and try to figure it out. You have a quest you are following and I'm following with you. And we will get no where with it if you insist on doing things that will end you up in the hospital continuously."

Her rant done, she sat there with the phone up to her ear, waiting for a response from him. "Are you still there?" 

She hoped to God that after all of that, after everything she just said, he hadn't hung up on her, or fallen asleep, or something else equally infuriating.

It was another long moment before he answered. "I'm still here," he replied glumly.

"There will be other cases." She tried to reassure him even as she knew the petulance was setting in.

"I hate being stuck here," he moaned. "They let you out of the cage, but I'm stuck here."

"At least you have jell-o," she pointed out to him.

"Perhaps I could choke myself on that someday when I'm old and am stuck in the nursing home."

The histrionics hardly phased her. "Goodbye, Mulder."


	95. Send in the Clowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder considers going to the circus.

"Did you ever want to run away to the circus, Scully?"

"I think I briefly considered a career dressed in sequins and standing on top of a horse. But I then I was five and anything involving tulle and sequins sounded like a great plan to me. Why?" She glanced up from the file she had been reviewing to eye Mulder's latest interesting tidbit, a case sent to him from a tiny, Florida town much to small to conduct a murder investigation of its own.

"When I was a kid, Samantha and I wanted to run away to the circus. I wanted to be a clown, crawling in and out of the tiny car."

"A clown?" Scully tried to imagine her lanky, tall partner with his dry wit and sardonic sense of humor pulling off the sort of jokes and pranks that one would need as a clown. "Clowns always used to frighten me."

"I didn't think anything frightened Dana Scully," Mulder quipped as he studied the black and white photographs in front of him. "Especially not a cheerful clown."

"I wouldn't step into a McDonald's as a child for the longest time." Scully grimaced, feeling a childish, involuntary squirming in her stomach at the thought of Ronald McDonald. "Needless to say I never did watch that mini-series _It_ when it was on TV."

"But we all float down here," Mulder dead panned in an eerie voice, glancing over the top of the photos.

She glared at him evenly, hardly amused.

"All right." He jerked his head over, an indication he wanted her to look at the pictures he continued to study. "I have some photos for you to look at."

She rose from her table and crossed to his desk as he handed her the first one. It was a black and white police photo of a horrible disfigured man, his face blotchy and peeling, fixed in death. She frowned at the picture. The man looked as if he had been the victim of an acid attack or perhaps an industrial accident.

"What happened to him?"

"Nothing you can ascertain from that photograph. The victim suffered from ichthyosis, a congenital skin disease characterized by the shedding of the epidermis in the form of scales."

It was a condition she wasn't familiar with, but then she wasn't a dermatologist. She reached for the next photograph Mulder handed her, that of the same man with a large, gaping wound in his side. "This shows the entry wound of the undetermined weapon. There were no other injuries inflicted upon the body, no internal organs removed and/or cannibalized, and there's no signs of sexual molestation either." Mulder rose from the desk, reaching for a stack of photos she had watched him pull earlier frpm the case files lining the far wall.

"That's forty-eight attacks over the last twenty-eight years, occurring in almost every state in the continental U.S., the first in Oregon and the last five in Florida." Each of the photographs he handed her had a victim suffering nearly identical wounds, though, she noted as she glanced at the victims, none of them shared anything physiologically that would have linked them one to another.

"The victims range from all different age groups, races, both male and female. The mutilations appear so motiveless that one would suspect some form of ritual, yet they adhere to no known cult. A lone serial killer would have been expected to escalate the level of violence of his attacks over such an extended period of time. So, what are your initial thoughts?" Mulder paused, watching her speculatively, his green eyes already bright as ideas, concepts, profiles danced in his brain.

Scully glanced at the picture of the man with the abnormal face again, not even sure where to begin. "Imagine going through your whole life looking like this?"

It clearly wasn't the answer Mulder had hoped to hear out of her. He slipped the photograph out of her hands and set it with the others. "What he looked like is less important than how he died. There's a pattern here with these people, I've yet to find it. The killer is obviously migratory, though not in the usual patterns for people moving from the cold north to the warm south. Also, the victims are random, without rhyme or reason, except given proximity. It seems to suggest murders of passion or blood lust rather than a cold, calculated hunt, which is typical of the average serial killer. Perhaps this is a person who tries to control an inhuman rage or need, but unable to force themselves into the social stigmas they know they must abide by, they lash out at whoever is closest, the most accessible to their need to act."

Scully blinked up at Mulder as he spoke, disquieted for perhaps the first time since she met him at the ability he had to just sit there and create these ideas, possibilities, and scenarios. "Mulder how is it you sleep at night? Seriously?"

"I don't," he only half-smiled as nodded at the stack of photos on his desk. "The sheriff of this town down in Florida contacted the FBI about this. I happened to have a request in looking for any other cases that fit the profile of the murders. Care to come to the Sunshine State with me, take a look into what is going on?"

"To look for a murderous serial killer who looks as if they chew through the sides of their victims for nothing more than some sort of weird kick?"

"Would you rather we be tracking down murderous, demonic clowns who pull small children through storm drains, ripping their arms off?"

"You are such a strange, disturbing man, Mulder." She shook her head as he laughed at her, scooping up the photos. "An evil, mean, strange man."

"And yet you're still coming along. Admit it, you can't help yourself."

"On the contrary, Mulder, it's what I get paid to do."

"You don't get paid enough." Se snorted as he reached for his coat on the back of the chair.

"Believe me, I know it." She moved to her table for her own things.


	96. Freaks and Geeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully go to a funeral.

The crowed of strange, unique, and tattooed mourners at the unfortunate Jerald Glazebrooks funeral had, _en masse_ , ganged up on the man who had interrupted the sorrowful service, as shouting and screaming rose up in an outraged cacophony over the setting. The guest had jumped up from the seats of the graveside service and somewhere Scully thought she could hear the quiet sobbing of Glazebrook's two little boys, who were caught in the middle of the chaos forming around the coffin of their beloved and too-soon-departed father.

What in the hell was going on?

She turned stunned eyes towards Mulder who sat beside her, the only two people left in the chairs, staring at the scene with the sort of bemused fascination one had for a burning building or a car crash. He glanced sideways at her, an amazed, rye smile turning up his full lips.

"I can't wait for the wake!" He turned to her in mock - maybe - seriousness.

"What in the hell," she breathed as Mulder grabbed her elbow and pulled her up, leading her away from the melee that was ensuing behind them.

"I take it the man who interrupted thought it would be fun to do a little performance art and the good citizens of Gibsonton thought better of it." He grinned jauntily as he cast another glance back and stretched his long legs across the grass of the cemetery. "Glazebrook was a performer, so is everyone back there. We've ended up in the town of circus freaks!" He flashed the giddy sort of grin that warned Scully that the childlike part of Mulder's personality was thrilled by this proposition.

"Mulder, side show, circus freaks are no more than people who are have trained themselves to do extreme exhibitions or humans who have very real, medical conditions. They are not people to be marginalized. They don't have strange capabilities."

"I didn't say they were," Mulder replied mildly. "But these are people who make a living off of being on the fringe of societies norms, of thumbing their noses at what it is to be conventional. And yet, as that little demonstration back there proved, they can get just as upset when the small rituals in life are desecrated by someone who thinks its funny to throw their own anarchy back on them."

"I'd be pissed as hell, too, if some jackass decided to do that in the middle of my father's funeral," Scully muttered, sympathetic to Mrs. Glazebrook and her children. "Seriously, it was a time for them to mourn and someone used it as a chance to show off to people who have probably seen his act a hundred times over. Its crass and tasteless."

"It's show biz," Mulder shrugged philosophically as they made their way to the main road that ran through the small town of Gibsonton, Florida, just down the road from the diner in which they were supposed to meet the town's one sheriff, Jim Hamilton. The town for the most part was quiet at this time of day. Scully imagined many of the citizens, if they weren't working whatever day jobs they had, were attending Jerald Glazebrook's circus of a funeral behind them.

"If you think about it, Mulder," she murmured as he moved just a step or two ahead of her as they walked. "It makes a strange sort of sense towards your profile."

"What does?" Mulder glanced back at her, pausing just long enough for her to catch up beside him.

"Well, if what you say is true and we are looking for someone who reacts in blind rage to the closest victim they can find, what if we are looking for someone who is a part of this culture? A sideshow freak?"

"Weren't you the one just chastising me for marginalization," Mulder teased lightly.

"No, hear me out. What if we are looking for someone who feels that marginalization everyday? They work in the field because that's what they can do, but they hate it, hate themselves, and hate others who live a so-called 'normal' life. Your files said Jerald Glazebrook led a normal life, right? A wife, two kids, a nice home, swimming pool."

"Outside of his wife having a beard, they were about as white bread as you could get," Mulder confirmed, looking slightly disturbed at Mrs. Glazebrook's facial hair.

"What if that is why he was targeted by our murderer. This person tries to hold back the impulses, but when they see someone who is living the life they can never have, they snap. And it would have been all the worse for Jerald, because he is someone who should be marginalized, like them, but has all the trappings of normality that they could never have."

"Very good, Doctor Scully." Mulder was clearly impressed. "You don't do so bad at this profiling thing."

She grinned up at him. "Really?" Coming from Fox Mulder, who had been a legend in criminal profiling before she even entered the Academy, that compliment meant a lot.

"Of course," he shrugged as they neared the restaurant. "I don't know if it's a correct hypothesis."

Scully felt her smile melt beneath the crushing weight of Mulder's flippant remark. Her eyes flashed stormily up at him. "And what would you suggest it is? Some sort of alien consciousness? Perhaps something straight out of one of your Ed Wood movies?" She was nettled by the callous way he had dismissed her profile, one that fit the obvious facts as they lay before them.

"The murders weren't done with any calculation, I don't think." Mulder seemed impervious to her hurt irritation. "I've studied those crime scene photos, Scully, it's done with a particular viciousness, an almost unthinking callousness, as if whoever did it didn't realize that what they were doing was painful, dangerous, or deadly to the victim. Either they were incapable of recognizing that or they didn't care."

"Mulder, you would be talking about someone who was less than human, who'd lack the ability to reason and think with the same sort of moral capability we as humans possess. What are you looking for, a werewolf?"

"Maybe," he replied, though without any real seriousness. "Or perhaps we are just looking for a poor soul who has never understood the gifts of love and kindness of a human heart."

"A poor, misunderstood creature who could viciously tear into victims without a thought or care about it." Scully shook her head as held open the door for her. "You can't seem to make up your mind if this person we are looking for is a monster or a martyr."

"Didn't you ever feel sorry for the monsters in those old, classic B movies?" Mulder asked. "The ones whom the townsfolk would chase with their torches and try to burn because they didn't understand them?"

"Those monsters usually weren't cold, blooded killers, Mulder. They were misunderstood."

"Aren't we all a little misunderstood?"

This was coming from a man who had the nickname "Spooky" from his peers. "Yes. But when was the last time you decided to savage someone with little or no reason?"

"Are we talking in minutes, hours, or days," Mulder teased as they spotted the sheriff, waving them over to a quiet booth.

"Just as long as you don't expect me to help you bury the bodies," she smirked as the moved up to the sheriff's table.


	97. There's One Born Every Minute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder swears there suspect is the Fiji Mermaid.

Sheriff Hamilton's eyes strayed to Scully as she cleared her throat and pretended to be particularly interested in a clump of what looked like ratted, nylon threading that bore the tag of being authentic unicorn hair. She didn't want to have to look at the sheriff's dubious gaze as Mulder carried on with Hepcat Helm about Fiji Mermaids and bought every line out of the man's mouth. Mulder would believe it of course. He'd believe anything in this place was real, even the slightly frazzled, glow-in-the-dark, sparkling unicorn hair in the case.

"Sheriff," Mulder had that tone, the unmistakable glee of someone who thinks they have found something strange, new and wonderful. "We're going to need a place to stay tonight."

She knew it. Their suspect had officially become a mummified monkey sewn on to a fish. She sighed and rolled her eyes, but there was little she could do to prevent Mulder once he got going. The manic gleam was in his eyes, the scent of the strange and weird in his nostrils. He would be chasing every strange, abnormal possibility there was, while she would be the one looking for the rational explanation. Though, finding a rational explanation in a town that reveled in the abnormal was going to be about as easy as proving to Mulder the Fiji Mermaid couldn't possibly exist.

"There are lodgings right across the way, but, uh... what's all this about?" The Sheriff kept shooting her sideways glances as if expecting her to explain things, but Mulder already had his photographs out, pointing to something that only he could see in the crime scene.

"These tracks were found at several of the past few crime scenes. They've defied exact identification, but one expert speculated that they might be simian in nature."

Might be simian? Scully snorted softly. Though, she would like to point out that a Fiji Mermaid was only half-Simian, and that half wasn't the end with the feet. She bit her tongue though and let Mulder dig his hole even further.

"You don't mean to tell me you think these tracks were made by the Fiji Mermaid?" Hamilton looked as if he couldn't decide to laugh in Mulder's face, or question his badge and credentials as an FBI Agent. And Scully, for the life of her, couldn't blame him. She smiled sweetly at the wondering gaze of the Sheriff, who turned to her for answers.

"Do you recall what Barnum said about suckers?" She nodded her head slightly at Mulder.

Her partner was not amused.

"We had this discussion on the way here, Scully, whatever did this isn't thinking with the rational of a normal human being. What if it isn't human?"

"I won't deny the possibility it could be an animal, Mulder, but the Fiji Mermaid? Barnum himself admitted it didn't exist." She waved her hand at the unicorn hair in its case. "Its as likely as this being real unicorn hair. There is no such thing as the Fiji Mermaid."

"Should I show you two to the trailer park?" The Sheriff broke in nervously as he could see the argument between the two of them escalate. Perhaps it was his own, vain attempt to remind the pair that he was there, or maybe he wanted to diffuse what was turning into a tense situation by distracting them with their place to stay.

"If you could, please," Scully replied gratefully, shooting Mulder an aggravated look over his dark scowl. "Fiji mermaids? Honestly Mulder! You see it on a menu and that's what your mind automatically jumps to?" She followed the tall figure of the bemused sheriff out of Hepcat Hemp's shop.

"It fits the evidence that we have, something that viciously attacked forty-eight human beings from Oregon to Florida. It would make sense that whoever was doing it had something to do with the sideshow business. Perhaps it's the pet of one of the performers, something they got as part of their act that they have to keep hidden because of its vicious nature."

"You know there's never been a living, Fiji Mermaid ever found," the sheriff pointed out to Mulder, almost apologetically. "They've only ever showed up in sideshows and curiosity museums, and always dead or skeletal." He glanced sideways at Scully. "Just thought I should point that out."

"Thank you, Sheriff." She smirked triumphantly at Mulder's dour expression. "My partner has a penchant for jumping to the extreme conclusion first and working his way backwards."

"That's because I prefer to find an explanation that fits all the variables presented to us in the case, rather than just picking and choosing the evidence I want to believe and making up an answer out of that." Mulder shot back peevishly, much to her surprise. It was rare he ever argued with her in front of the locals, not like this. Though, to be fair, she had provoked him…just a little bit.

"Pick and choose evidence, Mulder I'm not the one buying into the fact that our suspect is a mummified monkey with a fish sewn on its butt. The evidence we have is that there are people dead, all from the same sort of wound in their side, that's it. We have no profile, no method, hell the only suspect we have is found in a curio shop. And you are telling me that from this you have formed your hypothesis?"

"How do you explain the footprints," he snapped back mulishly, reaching once again for the photograph she hadn't even seen in Washington.

"How do you know those aren't some other sort of animals, a cat, or a dog, or a raccoon?"

"How many raccoons do you know who pick over human remains?"

"I don't know, Mulder, care to follow me into the woods so we can run an experiment," she grumbled loudly, causing the Sheriff to turn and stare at her in startled wonderment.

"Do you two often have these sorts of…spirited conversations?" The sheriff glanced between the two of them as he led them across the road to a gathering of trailers clustered near a sign that read "Gulf Breeze Trailer Park".

"Most people would call this an argument," Mulder replied with a pained smirk at the Sheriff. "And usually Agent Scully and I are able to play nice around company."

"That's usually because I'm able to more easily gloss over Agent Mulder's well known habit of jumping to the strangest and most outlandish possibility before he makes an utter ass of himself," Scully cut her eyes angrily at her partner, who snorted slightly, for his part at least genuinely amused.

"What's the date again, Scully? I seemed to have lost what time month of April we are at?"

That was low; she glared at him, but found herself chuckling despite herself. Well played, Mulder, she thought, still angry with him for going where he did, but admittedly impressed by the subtlety of his attack. Point to him...for now. She rolled her eyes at the Sheriff frowned from one to the other in a worried sort of fashion, and then ushered them to one trailer with the sign "Manager" hanging off one of the eves.

"This is Mr. Nutt's office, he'll be able to set you up for the evening. I know its trailers, but the closest hotel near here is twenty miles, and I thought you would like something a bit closer." He waved towards the door of the trailer office. "Place is neat and clean though, and the people in the park are all performers around here. They are good people, and quiet for the most part." He nodded around the local area. Scully could already smell cooking in the distance and felt her mouth water at the idea of dinner. "Anyway, I'll be around to help you two with your...investigation, if you need." He raised a nervous eyebrow at Mulder as he uttered that, as if fearful he would bring back questions regarding the Fiji Mermaid again.

"Thanks, Sheriff. We'll give you a call in the morning after we've had a chance to go over the evidence a bit more." Mulder replied diplomatically.

Such as it was, Scully thought. She at least didn't say it out loud, though she suspected it didn't matter. Mulder shot her a pointed look anyway.

"Right…so I'll here from you then, OK?" The Sheriff nodded, smiling, and made his way back across the street towards his offices, right by Hepcat Helm's establishment. He didn't bother to look back at the pair of them watching him as he walked.

"Well, that's another local sheriff you've managed to weird out. Happy?"

"I think he would have been less startled if he didn't have to hear you threatening to take me in the woods and shooting me."

"I'm not the one suggesting that a creature who technically is half fish is running around on two feet gnawing on people."

"I knew you would get to the technicalities of this eventually. Is it so hard to believe that strange, crazy, unexplained phenomenon that don't fit easily into your happy, neat little boxes could quite possibly exist?"

"Is it too hard for you to accept that when Barnum said it was a joke, he was serious?"

"What's the first thing we do when we want to hide the truth, Scully? We lie."

"But Barnum had already lied. He had said it was real, then admitted it was fake."

"Confounds the senses, doesn't it," Mulder replied gleefully.

"It confounds something, all right Mulder, but I think your senses left you a long time ago."

"You are determined to break my ass on this case, aren't you?"

"A Fiji Mermaid, Mulder? I'm not telling Skinner our suspect can be found in a shop on Coney Island for a buck tour."

"You can't tell me that's the strangest thing Skinner's ever heard coming out of me."

"That's quite possibly the most accurate observation you've made so far on this case," she breathed as she turned towards the manager's trailer.


	98. Amaze and Astonish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully reverse roles.

It was beyond words bizarre and disturbing to be the one standing in Mulder's shoes, the one with the insane, crazed theory, as Mulder stared at her in stunned, befuddled disbelief. It was as if the two of them had somehow ended up in a fun house mirror, and their roles had been flipped, she the one spouting off the impossible idea, while he was the one lost as to how this even worked. After all, who would think of a conjoined twin, a parasite essentially, who could detach and move, free of its host, looking for other bodies to inhabit. Common sense said it wasn't possible, and it was very, very disturbing to think about. Mulder looked as if the thought of it gave him the willies. Funny, she thought distantly, she thought Mulder had seen this plot enough in bad, horror flicks the idea of it wouldn't disturb him this much.

"Scully, you're the medical expert. If you think the twin can disengage, I believe you." Mulder looked as if he wasn't sure if he wanted to believe her. "But how mobile could such a thing be?"

This coming from a man who not twenty-four hours earlier was proposing their suspect was a Fiji Mermaid? Unbelievable, she thought, as she stared out the blood covered, barred window, wondering for half a moment if Mulder had a point. How did Leonard move at all? But as her hypothesis began to falter for lack of a good explanation, in the distance she could see something scuttling along the ground outside of the jail, swinging open the back gate.

"Too mobile," she shot back as she realized what Leonard was up to and dashed for the door to the jail. Mulder, without a word, followed right behind her. Her weapon was in her hand even as she rounded the corner to the back, the gate still open towards an inconspicuous, brown building. She paused there, Mulder stopping immediately beside her as they stopped, listening for any sound that would lead them to Leonard. A snarling, animal noise in the distance caused them both to turn towards it wordlessly and to take off in the direction of the building.

She parted ways with Mulder. He took the steps up, while she went through a backdoor down. There was no moon out that night, and the darkness was all encompassing as she went behind the building, shaded by trees and other structures. She found a door to the inside, but it led into nothing more than what looked like a storage area for old, fun house props. Dust gathered on bulky, indistinguishable shapes, lit by nothing more than the dim light from a street lamp outside. Her eyes, unused to the dark, tried to focus in vain on the panels around her and the dark, narrow passages she found herself twisting around. In the distance came the animal growling sound again and then footsteps. Could it be Mulder's? Perhaps Leonard was waiting just around the corner, growling and scuttling into the darkness. She turned a corner near her, her gun pointing in front of her, prepared for anything that might jump out in the darkness at her unexpectedly.

"Freeze," she shouted, point her gun down at what she thought would be the angle Leonard would come at her from. Instead, from above her, a body hurled itself towards her, flying at her in the darkness as he gasped and tried to scramble back. Then, it stopped. Inches from her face it paused, hanging sickeningly as it popped around, a grotesque, deformed head cackling on top of a mannequin's body, laughing at her own fear and doubt. Irritation and embarrassment blossomed immediately in her mind as she pushed it roughly aside, her racing heart fueling the anger she felt as she stormed down the hallway again, weapon raised.

Somewhere near her she thought she could hear Mulder's footsteps, but she couldn't pinpoint where he was. The dust that filmed the place now filled her nose and made her long to sneeze, but she held it as she moved with silent steps as she could down the hallway. She turned again, weapon raised, into a broad room, one with just enough light from the outside to reflect her own, pale, drawn face and her dark, red hair. She stepped carefully inside the room, gun pointing in front of her, startled to her right as her reflection appeared again, this time echoing a reflection from behind her. A hall of mirrors, she realized, all sorts of mirrors, one's that made her head bigger, ones that made her body look strange, a room lined with mirrors of all sorts, that reflected in on themselves till the created an infinite universe of Dana Scullys, all with guns raised as they searched for the likes of one, small, crawling creature.

There was the growling sound again! Scully spotted a tiny, disfigured, lump of flesh watching her with hateful eyes on the floor in front of one of the mirrors. Taking aim, she shot at the creature, but it was a ruse. The mirror shattered into a shower of silvered glass as the she searched for the strange, shriveled, atavistic thing, but it was nowhere to be seen. All an illusion, as devious as Leonard himself was proving to be. She turned into what she thought was a hallway and attempted to turn again, but found a mirror there. In frustration, she spun down the other direction, finding yet another hallway, still just as dark and mysterious as the rest, but blessedly free of mirrors. She had only taken a few steps when, out of an unknown shoot down the hall, something fell out with a hard thump. On instinct Scully aimed, but remembered the mannequin from down the hall. Unlike the mannequin, this body moved and stood up. Shaken, Mulder scrambled to his feet, surprised to see her there with her weapon drawn on him.

"I thought I heard a shot fired." He glanced around himself quickly, obviously confused as to where he was and how he got there. Frankly, so was Scully, and this fun house, with its maze of rooms was beginning to get on her nerves. They had no chance of finding Leonard in it, and by now the weird little imp was probably making a run for it outside.

"I think we better go outside and catch this thing coming out," she muttered as she led the way down the hallway, hoping this led to the outside somehow. As she opened the door at the end of the hallway, Scully let out a grateful sigh as fresh air and the stars above let her know they were indeed free of the insanity inside. Now if they could figure out where Leonard had gotten to.

"There," Mulder muttered as he pointed towards something crawling along the ground to the woods. He immediately took off after it, his longer legs covering the ground towards the creature much more quickly than Scully's could, but still no quick enough to match the demented little goblins speed. Despite Mulder's own disgustingly fast pace, Leonard disappeared, and they both took off along the main road, looking for signs of the creature. Ahead of them in the darkness, something small and low to the ground started and barked, growling at them as they got near. Without thinking, they both turned their weapons on the creature.

It yipped at them briefly, before breaking out into full, fledged barks loud enough to rouse the entire trailer park.

"It's the manager's dog," she muttered in disgust as Mulder lowered his weapon, spinning around them looking for where Leonard could possibly move to next.

"The trailer park." He jerked his head, urging her to follow him, as they ran around the grouping of trailers in the park. The streetlights were on, but it didn't cast much light, and the stumbled through the grassy lawns in between the mobile, housing units. Neither had their flashlights on them, and they were left to listen and peer futility into the darkness, looking or any sign of twitch, any growl in the dark that might indicate to them that Leonard was hiding. Mulder leaned over to peer under the skirting of each of the raised trailers, while Scully carefully moved the trash cans lids, almost afraid that the nasty thing would jump out at her from the depth of black, plastic garbage bags.

In the distance screaming rang though the night as they both turned, simultaneously, to the noise in the distance. Scully took off after her much faster partner, following the sound of the shouting that cut off, suddenly, before they could find it. Mulder ran on to the trailer shared by Dr. Blockhead and his friend, the Conundrum. The strange, tattooed man lay crumpled on the ground, holding a stomach that looked much to full for any normal human. But he was, Scully remembered, a geek, a man who ate anything. And sitting as he was by the trashcans, it was hard to say what the weird man had been into to cause that sort of reaction. Frankly, she was almost afraid to ask.

"Are you all right," she asked breathlessly as she knelt down beside him, trying to help the strange man sit up, as Mulder knelt to the other side. Unsurprisingly, he didn't say one way or the other, but he did wince painfully as he cradled his rounded stomach in his tattooed hands. Mulder glance around him frantically, looking for any sign of their prey.

"Have you seen a…uh…" 

Mulder looked at a loss as to how to describe what they were looking for or even what to say. He tried, helplessly, to illustrate with his hands the size and shape of what they were looking for, but found that he just couldn't. And what were they expecting, the man didn't talk anyway, or hadn't in the time they had known him. In frustration, Mulder jumped up again, running off to search. Reluctantly, Scully followed.

For an hour they searched the grounds and found nothing, looking under every trailer, digging through ever trashcan. When their search turned up empty, Mulder turned to her, frustration clear on his weary, tired face.

"Where does an intestine-gnawing, ankle biter hide anyway, Scully?" He finally sighed, brushing off his now filthy suit, dirt streaking one cheek, and his dark, brown hair now sticking up in all sorts of horrible directions.

"Maybe he got off into he woods," she theorized, frowning into the leafy darkness. "Though I don't think he could stay there long. Judging from the look of Lanny's wound in his side, he needs his brother as much as he doesn't like it. My guess is that he is able to detach himself for brief periods to venture on his own, but has to return to his host to rest and allow for some of his body functions to cycle through his brother's system."

"Is that even possible?"

"It's highly improbable, but not impossible. I guess in theory it could work, much like a person with kidney problems can live on a dialysis machine. But its never been seen before."

Mulder stared at her, wordless for long moments, before shaking his head. He moved beside her, resting his hand on her elbow and pushing her towards the Sheriff's office.

"How about you try explaining that to the Sheriff and his deputies and have them out here searching for a scuttling, gut-burrowing creature in the dark. I think I'm done for the night, Agent Scully."

"But Leonard could still be out there," she protested, running a hand through her own, wild hair."

"Even if he is, he can't go far. He still needs his brother. If he's as co-dependent as you say he is, he'll have to come out sooner or later."

"I suppose," she murmured uncertainly as they made their way through the trailer park towards the sheriff's office, where every light was still blazing now well after midnight.

"I have to admit, Scully, I'm very impressed with you?"

"Impressed with me," she frowned at him in confusion. "Why?"

"For once you were the one who looked at all the facts and came up with the theory that best explained all of them, even the weird ones. And you did it without hesitation." There was something of pride in Mulder's voice, a sense of surprised delight in the conclusions she had come to.

"Well, it only made sense," she reasoned simply. "Lanny's twin was always in his side, but wasn't tonight. The wound wasn't bleeding, none of his organs were damaged, and whatever did it had to be small enough to get into the cell through the bars on the windows, where none of us could see it coming in or going out. I only drew a straight-line conclusion from the facts as they were presented to me."

"And I don't?"

"I wouldn't call yours a straight line," she replied dryly. "Perhaps a squiggly one."

"Still, I get to the same place, don't I?"

"What was that about a Fiji Mermaid yesterday?" She couldn't resist prodding him on his cherished theory.

"I will concede I was wrong on that," he acknowledged. "But you're the one who is going to have to explain to Sheriff Hamilton why it is he's looking for a conjoined twin who can un-join himself at random. And somehow I don't think he's going to buy that any more than he did the Fiji Mermaid story."

Mulder was right on this point, she knew it, and he should understand that better than most, as he was the one who was most often stuck in this position, not her.

"I wonder what it was Leonard thought he was doing, running around outside of his brother like that?"

"Maybe looking for a new host," she offered. "After all, Lanny had a drinking problem, he admitted as much. Perhaps Leonard sensed that Lanny might drink himself to an early grave well before Leonard was ready.

"If you can't live with him, you can't live without him," Mulder muttered softly as the crossed the road to the office. "Here I've spent over half my life searching for my sister, and Leonard has been killing people left and right in a primal effort to get away from his brother."

"It's different, I guess." Scully reasoned bleakly. "Leonard and Lanny have shared the same body all their lives, they don't know anything different. Imagine if, instead of Samantha, you had been born with a conjoined twin. You'd never have been able to play baseball or basketball, never able to do anything normal. Your entire life would be wrapped up in this one other person who you couldn't ever get away from."

"Except somehow Leonard figured out a way to do it," Mulder pointed out. "You care to explain to me how?"

"Not till I can examine Lanny." She shook her head, utterly bewildered at where to begin. "Is this how you always feel, Mulder, wondering how in the world you are going to even begin explaining any of this?"

"Usually, I don't worry about that detail, I just go with it and hope the details work themselves out as I go." He grinned wickedly as he held open the police station door for her.

"This explains why I have to fish you off glaciers in Alaska." She glowered as she stepped inside.

"That's why I like having you around, Scully!"


	99. I've Seen the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully sees Mulder in a whole new, and sort of uncomfortable, light.

There was no sign of Leonard the next morning. Scully pulled up to the trailer park, fresh from the autopsy of his twin brother, Lanny, even more certain that her supposition was correct, but with even less explanation on how it worked. She frowned as she watched Sheriff Hamilton standing with one of his deputies, talking animatedly, and shooting dark looks at the deliberately oblivious Mulder. Her partner stood to one side, watching as Dr. Blockhead and his companion, The Conundrum, packed their belongings into a car that looked as if it barely knew how to run. Perhaps after all of this they were smart in picking up stakes and getting the hell out of Dodge. God knows she wanted to, with all undo speed. She was done with circus freaks and sideshow geeks, and ready to go home. Exhausted, she climbed out of the car and crossed the expanse of grass to where the sheriff stood talking to his deputy, giving him orders to look behind one of the trailers and seeing what he could find. She stood patiently beside him, ready to give him her report on Lanny's autopsy.

Sheriff Hamilton did not look pleased to see her though. "Now, you're sure it was the twin you saw running around here?" He wore the same sort of expression most local law enforcement wore when addressing her partner. "I mean, maybe it was the Fiji Mermaid and he jumped back in the river and swum his way back to Fiji."

Scully was so stunned by the mild-mannered sheriff's response to say anything. She stared at him in astonishment as he stalked off across the grass, shocked that it had been her, and not Mulder who had received that sort of treatment from the sheriff. As if sensing what she was thinking, Mulder moved beside her out of nowhere and muttered in her ear, "Now you know how I feel." He nodded knowingly as he moved past her, and continued walking to their car.

Well as if she wasn't already having a shitty day, she thought, this pretty much sealed the deal on it. She rolled her eyes in frustration as she watched Dr. Blockhead load up his car, tying random bits of junky furniture to his car, perhaps all parts of his act. The Conundrum, still only dressed in his loincloth and tattoos, crawled wearily into the front seat. He didn't look as if he felt well at all. She crossed to them thoughtfully, watching as the unlikely pair settled in to leave for whatever new parts they planned on taking their act to.

"You're taking off?" She met Dr. Blockhead's eyes over the car. He didn't stop in his work, tightening the bindings over his belongings, moving around to adjust them to his car.

"With that thing still on the loose?" He shivered as he shook his head clearly disturbed by the events he witnessed the night before. Funny, for men like Dr. Blockhead, she would have assumed that he had seen everything disturbing and unusual known to man. But she figured even this was a bit on the freakish side, even for a person who liked to hang himself from the ceiling by his nipples.

"They've been searching for it all day. It can't have sustained itself for this long."

"It will probably try to crawl back up into its brother." He sounded vaguely disgusted by this.

"No, his brother Lanny died last night. I already performed the autopsy on him this morning."

He threw his rope over the top of the car, walking around it to tie it down on the other side. "So, I guess it's true, you can never go home again."

"His body wounds were non-fatal. He died as a result of advanced cirrhosis of the liver." This lent credence to her supposition that Leonard hadn't gone about killing people out of cruelty, hunger, or desire. He had simply been looking for a new, surrogate host. He probably sensed better than Lanny did that his days were numbered.

Dr. Blockhead was clearly amused. "Oh, so there's a moral to the story. Lay off the booze!"

"Well, his body possesses some anatomical discrepancies, some offshoots of the esophagus and trachea that almost seem umbilical in nature and I've never seen anything like it." She had already sent Lanny's body to Tallahassee that morning for further study at Florida State University, with the notice that the whereabouts of the now, missing twin were indeed still unknown. It was a genetic anomaly that was frankly something she had never expected to find, not even in conjoined twins.

"And you never will again." Dr. Blockhead snorted as he worked, shaking his head in bland derision. "Twenty-first century genetic engineering will not only eradicate the Siamese twins and the alligator-skinned people, but you're going to be hard-pressed to find a slight overbite or a not-so-high cheekbone. You see I've seen the future and the future looks just like him!"

Scully followed the direction that Dr. Blockhead pointed, her eyes settling on her partner as he stood in front of a trailer, one food raised on the step, his hands resting on his hips as he looked vaguely in the distance. She was certain that Mulder didn't even realize he was doing it, but he looked for all the world like one of those models one saw in the catalogues for men's suits, the ones that she and her sister always used to sigh and giggle over when they were still just little girls and too young to really notice boys their own age. The wind blew back his dark hair softly, his tall, lean form radiating athleticism and good looks. And it was in a moment of shocking, blinding, nearly overwhelming personal clarity that it wasn't just that she thought her partner, Fox Mulder was an attractive man in the sense that she would find Michelangelo's David an attractive specimen of the male species, or even in the vague way she thought a Hollywood actor was an attractive man to look at. She personally found herself attracted to her partner…very attracted.

For a moment she thought the world shifted beneath her feet as her face flushed a bright red missed totally by Dr. Blockhead. Several different, horrible, gut-wrenching thoughts ran through her mind as somewhere a gleeful little voice in her brain pointed out all the little things about Mulder that made her heart skip a beat, just for a second. The way his hand rested in that small area in her back, the slow curve of a smile on his lips, the way his green eyes had of looking at her in such a way that she could swear sometimes they could read her mind with their piercing, blinding intensity. And it was perhaps that intensity that she found most attractive about him, disturbingly enough, that insistent, crazed, blind belief of his, stubborn and immovable, the tenacity he had to keep going, to never give up even when people like Sheriff Hamilton laughed in his face.

Dear God, she thought in blind horror, what in the work was she thinking?

"Imagine going through your whole life looking like that?" Dr. Blockhead muttered, unknowingly parroting the very same words she had said about Jerald Glazebrook when she first gazed at his picture. Shaking herself back to reality, Scully turned to the other man across the car, blinking away the unnerving, disquieting, thoroughly upsetting realization that still simmered in the back of her brain. "That's why it's left up to the self-made freaks like me and the Conundrum to remind people."

"Remind people of what," she asked blankly, feeling stupid and dull at this moment with that upsetting epiphany smacking her in the face.

"Nature abhors normality. It can't go very long without creating a mutant. Do you know why?"

"No, why?" She tried to dredge up a proper, scientific answer for that, but finding herself too stupefied to answer.

"I don't either," Dr. Blockhead replied philosophically. "It's a mystery. Maybe some mysteries are never meant to be solved."

Like, Scully thought for a hysterical moment, the mystery of why she just thought of Fox Mulder as someone she was attracted to, not just someone she thought looked pretty. Dear God, how was she going to look at him the same way again? Much to her personal horror Mulder decided to walk away from his momentary posing, looking like the cover of GQ Magazine to join her by Dr. Blockhead's car, peeking in the front seat where the Conundrum still sat, huddled over, looking decidedly unwell as his friend did all the work packing.

"What's the matter with your friend," he inquired conversationally to the less than conciliatory Dr. Blockhead. Scully's guess was the man still was irritated with Mulder for his arrest last night. He shrugged dully as he glanced at the Conundrum, climbing into the driver's seat of their beat up car.

"I don't know what his problem is. Maybe it's the Florida heat."

"Hope its nothing serious," Scully offered up in consolation as Dr. Blockhead started the car.

The Conundrum looked up at her worried words and smiled broadly across his wide, tattooed face. "Probably something I ate," he replied, the only words she thought she heard the strange man utter the entire time they had been there. He grinned as Dr. Blockhead pulled off, settling back in his seat at she stood beside Mulder, watching them drive off down the road.

Something she ate, she wondered. It wouldn't be surprising. He ate things she was sure the human digestive system was never meant to eat….glass, nails, wood, and that wasn't counting the raw meats he probably consumed for his act, the fish Mulder had caught him catching and eating straight from the water. She wouldn't doubt that the Conundrum would eat small animals if he were given half the chance, or even…

Her eyes flew to Mulder's, comprehension alight in his own eyes as the gears clicked for him as well. They stood there, blinking, first at one another, then at the retreating car, wordless as the full weight of what this thought meant. Their entire case was now gone in the stomach of a man heading to God knew where.

"I guess Leonard found a new host," Mulder murmured softly beside her. "I don't think the accommodations were quite what he was looking for though."

"Dear God," she whispered, shuddering at the implication. "Mulder, get me out of here. Take me home. I don't want to see another circus freak or sideshow for the rest of my life."

"I think I'm right there with you," he muttered. "I think I've dealt with enough disturbing ideas for one case, haven't you?"

She glanced sideways up at him, recalling for a moment that feeling she had while watching him standing by the trailer. It was like being in junior high school, she realized, just when your hormones kick in and you realize that hey, your math teacher is sort of cute. It was the same sort of feeling, only she wasn't in junior high school and Mulder certainly wasn't her math teacher. It was so much worse than that.

"I think I've had enough disturbing realizations myself," she murmured, turning towards their car. "I need a vacation, Mulder, from weirdness, from oddity, and from you."

"What have I done now," she heard him mutter in confused hurt as she stalked away to their car.


	100. A Favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder looks into a request on behalf of his father.

"You went to school in College Park, right?" Mulder asked as she walked into the office door, standing immediately and reaching for his coat.

Scully guessed there wasn't a point in setting her things down. "That's where the University of Maryland is at, yes, and I did live there for four years. Why?"

"Know the good parking spots?" He led the way back to the elevators, barely glancing over his shoulder at her to see if she would follow.

"We heading up there?" College Park wasn't ludicrously far away from DC, but it was confusing to Scully what in the world Mulder would be going to the University of Maryland for when there were many perfectly good, research university right there in Washington DC if he needed someone. She rushed after him to the elevator where he already waited. "Is there a particular reason we are heading up to College Park?" s

They stepped into the elevator and Mulder hit the floor that led to their parking area. "Guy I know teaches up there is a master of digital photography. He promised he would help me out with looking at an image." 

The elevator opened to the floor they normally too to there parking area. Mulder continued as they stepped off. "I want to see if he can see anything unusual in the image. Chuck is the master of finding things in photographs that might escape the normal, human eye; electromagnetic activity, odd heat signatures…."

"Most people would just think that Grandma got her thumb too close to the lens again." Scully followed quickly behind Mulder's long, easy gait. "So what's the case this time? What the spot is in the sky over the kiddie pool, or why everyone has red eyes in the picture?"

Mulder laughed but shook his head. "No, it's actually a case my Dad asked me to look into."

"Oh!" Scully was unsure what else to say in response. Bill Mulder was a touchy subject for his son. Even after his unexpected visit to Alaska, his son had kept quiet about his father's visit and what had passed between them. Scully understood strained, familial relationship all too well and had said nothing since the day she had her heart-to-heart with her partner's father, but that wasn't to say she wasn't curious.

Mulder shrugged as he held open the door to the parking structure for her and followed behind. "It's a favor for a friend of his in the State Department, Steve Holvey. He was one of the young bucks at State when Dad was retiring, and he took Holvey under his wing. He helped Holvey get a nice posting in Eastern Europe just as things were thawing during the Cold War. That's where Holvey met his wife, Maggie." He pointed towards her sedan rather than his. Scully pulled out the keys for her car.

"So has this Holvey done something that would warrant your father sending you a case for him?" The idea of yet another case where they as members of the Justice Department would invade the territory of another branch of government wasn't appealing. They had still not heard the last of their North Sea, Navy fiasco, and she doubted Skinner would appreciate getting an irate call from someone at State, fuming over two FBI agents poking their nose where it didn't belong.

"Nothing Holvey did, no. It was a family tragedy." Mulder grimaced slightly as Scully clicked her automatic door lock, folding himself into the passengers seat as eased behind the wheel. "Dad was close with Holvey and his wife. He did a lot of the work to get Maggie over from Romania at a time when Ceauşescu wasn't letting anyone out. Anyway, they had a recent death in the family, and while there was a coroner's inquest into the matter, I guess Dad thought my insight and expertise would be of some assistance."

Mulder's tone was carefully stoic, well crafted and neutral, but Scully could sense the tension that lay just beneath it, the years of hurt and anger between father and son that lay just under the surface of those words. "How are things between you and your father these days," she asked casually as she carefully backed her car out of her spot and towards the exit of the parking structure."

"Dad?" Mulder shrugged, as if he commonly brought up the father he hardly ever spoke to. "We've been trying since he came up to Anchorage." He admitted this haltingly, as if worried that saying this out loud might just reverse the tiny steps that he had made in the two months since his near death experience. "We've had phone conversations. I promised to spend the next three day weekend up there with him." He fidgeted nervously with the fabric of his slacks just above his right knee, pulling at it with long fingers. "He's been more interested in my work, at least, and seems to want to listen to it a bit more than he used to."

"He didn't approve of your work, then?" Scully hadn't bothered asking Bill Mulder his opinion on Fox's life's effort, but she suspected that it certainly factored into Bill's dislike of Mulder's chosen course of profession.

"Dad felt I was throwing my life away chasing ghosts and goblins and things that went 'bump' in the night." Mulder chuckled, but it was mirthless. His stared fixedly out of the window of Scully's car as she made her way to the closest on ramp that would lead her to the freeway out of DC and towards the city where her _alma mater_ resided. "He wanted me to leave it alone…to leave Samantha's disappearance alone."

"He didn't want you to continue looking for her?" After the remorse the elder Mulder had shown her when he had visited his son in Alaska, this came as something of a shock.

"My parents wouldn't talk about it. To this day they still don't, even after…what happened." He still had yet to discuss the woman who said she was Samantha, despite the occasional references to things she had told him, things they had learned. "I think they just couldn't bare the thought of me continuing the search. It hurt too much. They didn't understand. So we shut each other out. For Dad, perhaps it just brought up for him all the ways he felt he failed as a father to his children. He would rather I did something normal, something that he let him pretend that the past didn't happen."

"A wife and grand kids to deny the pain and suffering of a childhood cut off short?"

"Essentially." Mulder shrugged. "I think my father felt that if I had just gone the route of an easy life, a family, a home somewhere, he could have bridged those gaps earlier. Perhaps we could have grown closer over the idea of grandchildren." Mulder's jaw worked quietly as he stared blindly at the car in front of them. He so rarely opened up about his family, about the pain that lingered between his parents and their only, remaining son. "I think the woman who came - and my latest escapades, perhaps - he's starting to come around to why I do this, why it's so important to me. I can't live my life like my father, alone with the regrets of my past, of the things I didn't do or didn't fix. I need to know that I've done everything in my power to understand."

Scully considered the aged man she had met in Anchorage, the father who missed the son who he had ostracized years ago. Despite the regrets in Bill Mulder, there was also a good deal of affection and a quiet pride in the man his son had become, despite the aliens and the persistent search for the sister that both of his parents had tried to forget. "I think your father is proud of you, Mulder. I think he's proud of you in so many ways. And I think it's just now that he realizes how he's failed you in that."

Mulder said nothing, but a line in his jaw relaxed, the tension in his shoulders eased, just slightly. Scully didn't think that Mulder ever would find the resolution with his father, that he would ever be able to make complete peace with the man who had shut out his son for so much of his life and had ignored the man who sought so fervently and believed so completely in the return of the sister whose loss had torn their family apart. But at least, she reasoned quietly as she glanced at the now silent figure of her partner, they would have some wounds tended, some fences mended. Enough that Bill felt comfortable in going to his son for a favor that called upon his area of expertise, something that months ago Scully doubted the elder Mulder would have asked of his son. And that was a start at least.


	101. The Old Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully must face cultures not her own.

Steve Holvey held the business car in front of him as if the FBI seal on the front might burn his fingers. The words 'professional councilor' did not sit well with him no matter how Scully tried to soften the blow. She was an FBI social worker, nothing more and nothing less, and she would want to know why it was that Charlie Holvey and his late brother had been in the hospital so many times. She would ask pointed questions, about the Holveys, about Maggie's mother, Golda, and about her place in the home. And Scully had no doubt that Maggie would not be happy to have her parenting as a mother and Golda's influence on her grandchildren questioned.

Mulder glanced sideways at Scully from where he sat beside her, but said nothing.

"Oh boy," Steve Holvey breathed as he stared at the card. "This…is going to be hard."

"I know," Scully acknowledge, not envying the man the blow up that would come when they accompanied him home to tell his wife and mother-in-law. "But its for Charlie's well being. If what we suspect is true, than your son could be in great danger."

Holvey's eyes widened as his fingers tightened around the thick paper in his fingers, setting it down before he crushed it. "Do you really suspect…"

"I could be wrong, Mr. Holvey," she admitted, though something told her she wasn't. "I hope I'm wrong. But it's not a chance that we are willing to take on your son's well being. Besides, we may be able to clear this all up by just talking to Charlie."

"Charlie's not the one I worry about." Holvey nervously leaned back in his chair, regarding herself and Mulder with a worried frown for the briefest of moments, then shrugging, as if considering how much he should say, how much he should admit to people who were investigating his home life.

"Maggie loves her mother. She may have left the old ways behind, but Golda has been Maggie's life since she was just a girl. Her father died at the hands of the Communist regime.Golda has had to raise her daughter all by herself, and she resents the fact that I took her away, that I brought her to America and filled her head with Western ideas of how the world works and that I raised my children that way. Maggie's always been caught in the middle between the two of us. Golda…she's from the old country, she has old ways. And I'm worried what Maggie will think, what she will say." 

He glanced helplessly between them. "I'm sure your psychologist is well-meaning, Agent Scully, but how is she supposed to understand the habits of a woman whose culture goes back centuries?"

"I think what Agent Scully is trying to say," Mulder cut in before Scully could even formulate a reply, "we want to make sure we take every precaution to ensure Charlie's safety, in as sensitive of manner as possible. We mean no disrespect to your mother-in-law, your wife, or your family, but we do want to ensure that Teddy's death is solved and that Charlie isn't at risk, nothing more."

Scully bit her tongue as Steve Holvey seemed to relax visibly under Mulder's words. "Maggie won't like this a bit. She remembers Communism, what they did to her father, to others. Her knee jerk reaction is to question anything the minute the government gets involved. But I'll bring Charlie, even if she isn't happy with it."

"We'll meet you at your house, then." Mulder rose, taking Holvey's proffered hand, glancing at Scully silently as she did the same. She waited till they were out of Holvey's office and into the hallway before she said a word.

"Thanks for stepping in back there, Mulder, I wasn't aware I was botching it so badly," she snapped sarcastically as she rounded on him.

"Excuse me?" Mulder stopped, staring at her incredulously as she glared, hands moving to his waist as he frowned in confusion. "Did I miss something back there?"

"Just because I'm a scientist, Mulder, doesn't make me insensitive to the Holvey's plight. I grew up in an Irish Catholic home, I know a thing or two about superstitions."

"Really?" Mulder's mouth curved ever so slightly. "Did your Irish Catholic grandmother toss chicken guts up on the roof to protect your family?"

"No," Scully admitted slowly. "I'm merely stating that I know that for Maggie Holvey's mother that these beliefs are quite real. But that doesn't absolve her of abuse of a child, if that is indeed what is going on." She pressed her lips together at Mulder's doubtful look. "She called the boy a devil to his face. What sort of culture do you know where that is even vaguely appreciated?"

"I'm not saying that she might not be the source of what is going on. But I am saying you can't just throw a psychologist at this and hope that it will clear the problem. I know." It was his pointed reminder to her that he was a psychologist himself. "We have to treat this a bit more carefully than that, Scully, and not as if this boy was your typical story of child abuse."

"Would that be because it would be a scandal for the State Department, or for your father's young protégé?" It was an unfair statement, and she knew it the moment the anger and hurt flashed ever so briefly in Mulder's eyes before he tamped it down, shaking his head, and moving past her.

"Scully, you always accuse me of getting too close to certain cases. What about you and this? You automatically jump to the conclusion of child abuse and you won't move."

"And wouldn't you if it were a child who went missing? I'm a doctor, Mulder. It galls me the idea of anyone causing harm like this, especially someone who is given the care of a child like that. And whether Maggie Holvey's mother is doing what she feels is right according to her culture or not, it doesn't give her allowances to harm a child."

"I know that," Mulder acknowledged. "But you also can't dismiss what her mother is doing. We don't know what it is and we don't understand. She might be reacting for a very specific reason, one that would explain her behavior. And until we understand those reasons and what is going on in the Holvey home, we can't just write her off as the strange, kooky grandmother out to kill her grandkids. Just because she's different doesn't make her the creepy, old lady from some Eastern European fairy tale."

"I didn't assume that," Scully shot back, slightly nettled and perhaps a tad guiltily. In a way, subconsciously, she had assumed that very thing. But it also made the most logical sense in terms of all the indicators she read for Munchausen's by Proxy. "Lets just get Charlie in to see Karen Kosseff. We'll see what she has to say about it, and we'll move from there."

"No matter what logic tells you, Scully, remember, there's more to this than just connecting the straight-line dots. Don't dismiss what you don't understand just because it's different."

Scully's face flamed bright red as he moved down the hallway. "How many times have you known me to do that, Mulder?"

He didn't bother to respond.


	102. Superstition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder for once is talking sense about warrants.

She didn't know whether to be insulted by Golda's angry ascertain or to over ride it and return to the house anyway.

"Don't think about it, Scully." Mulder seemed to sense the ire burning in the back of her brain. "Not without a warrant at least. And I have a feeling that we'll get it when State wants to know what happened to Steve." He shook his head sadly at the garage.

"Mulder, she's standing in the middle of an investigation and she's denying us access to the site of the investigation."

"Then we can get a warrant," Mulder returned, frowning at the ash he scraped off the garage door motor, the one that had snagged Steve Holvey's tie and hung him before his horrified child. "You can't force this, Scully, not when she has the law on her side on this one."

"Who were those men with her," Scully asked, knowing Mulder was right, and still irritated she could do nothing about it.

"Perhaps elders of their particular community from Romania who live locally. Maybe those who know what is going on here." He waved the evidence in front of her and turned towards the car.

"What's going on here is that these children are being threatened by their grandmother." She turned to follow after him. "You want to make this an X-file, but it's looking more and more like a case of child abuse."

"And you want to make this a case of child abuse, but it's looking more and more like an X-file."

"You really believe that the woman isn't up to something, after everything we found in her room, after the way she just threw us out?"

"It's her ways, Scully, her cultural beliefs. It doesn't make her guilty just because she has dead roosters in her room."

"I saw her put something into Charlie's food."

"And you don't know what that is," he pointed with equanimity. "Face it, Scully, you are judging this woman based totally on the fact that she clings to beliefs and ideas that your science has deemed antiquated and superstitious. And yet, someone could same the same about you and that cross you wear around your neck." He gestured to the golden charm at her throat.

"That's a matter of faith," she protested mildly.

"And so is this, and no court on earth is going to bust an old lady from Romania who clings to her dead chickens and her superstitions. You'll need more evidence than that."

Scully blinked at her partner, quietly stunned as he got into her car's passengers side. What had happened to her in the last few cases? It was as if her entire life had come bizarre world and Mulder was the one now spouting common sense and rational thought, while she was the one carrying on without a logical thought in her head. She quietly followed him into her car, getting behind the wheel and starting the engine.

"All the same, Mulder, I want to get social services out here to take Charlie out of the home, at least for now, just to observe him."

"I think it's a bad idea, Scully, but I will defer to your wisdom as a medical, healthcare professional," he replied diplomatically. She knew he wanted to delve further into Maggie Holvey's mother's beliefs, what she was doing, and what that had to do, if anything, with the deaths of her grandson and son-in-law. Frankly, the only connection she saw was that Golda's superstition was getting the better of her.

"Why is it that people cling to these old beliefs anyway?" Scully pulled off down the road. "I know it was Romania, but even there it wasn't a total backwater. Dracula and stories of vampires and werewolves aside, obviously they weren't cut off from the modern world. Maggie would never have agreed to follow Steve otherwise."

"What makes superstition and what makes religious belief? Frankly, for that matter, what makes scientific belief?" Mulder posed his question thoughtfully. "When you think about it, those beliefs you consider superstition are merely ideas born out of man's attempt to explain an unexplainable world, the everyday calamities, and prevent them from happening. Sickness is attributed to evil spirits that have to be appeased by offerings or sacrifices. Unfortunate events come from bad luck that has to be changed by a blessed item or good luck charm. Think about it, how much of our everyday lives are run by superstitions."

"Most of us don't have superstitions that involve dead barnyard animals in our room."

"No, but think about the average baseball player. They will shuffle their feet, swing their bats so many times, tie their shoes a certain way, strap and unstrap their gloves, maybe say a prayer and kiss their crucifix."

"For what purpose?"

"To hit a ball, to not strike out, baseball players are notoriously superstitious, and the worse they are playing the more superstitious they get. There's no real, hard, scientific evidence ever to support there assertions. But it doesn't stop them from believing these little things effect the way they play. Just like the faithful believe that their religious rituals ensure that they have made peace with God, or that some deity has heard their prayers, etc.

"My attendance of mass is very different than what that woman is doing. I've never called a child evil, nor have I slipped them something in their food.

"All I'm saying, Scully, is not to judge the old woman till we get the whole story. That is our duty as investigators. You know that and I know that. And you are the one who throws that in my face every time I turn around. I'm surprised you seemed to have forgotten that with this case."

His reproof stung and she didn't want to admit it. He was right, and yet everything in her screamed warning bells when she saw how the woman treated her own grandson. In cases like these, when a child's life was at stake, how could you be so blasé as to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, even for religious beliefs. And yet, she reasoned sullenly, Mulder might be right. It might not be as cut and dry as she wanted to make it out to be.


	103. Jail Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is cross-agency cooperation in the Department of Justice.

It was never a good sign when their boss called one of them into his office first thing in the morning. Even Scully had come to recognize that. And she couldn’t help but wonder if their recent foray into the Holvey case might have something to do with it. She tried racking her brains to see if there was anything that might send up the red flags for Skinner. They hadn’t involved the State Separtment, they had clearly filled out the paperwork, or at least she had. Mulder usually only remembered the paperwork a week after the case had finished. Everything should be fine. 

She had spoken to Maggie Holvey just yesterday. Maggie said that Charlie was doing well and that there hadn't been a single sign of physical ailment or trauma in the last few weeks. Every sign seemed to be that he was a perfectly healthy, happy nine-year-old, nothing invoked the horrible traumas he had faced, nor the unexplained events that still swirled around the deaths of his father, grandmother, and baby brother. It amazed Scully still, despite what she had seen in the Holvey’s house that night, the disturbing image of a child who looked like Charlie, with inhumanely dead looking eyes, standing over her with a silver knife in hand, ready to strike. She had no explanation for it and had left it out of her report all together. And perhaps that was the reason for this meeting today. Her report had been, admittedly, woefully incomplete. Scully had no explanation for the things she witnessed or for the deaths of Steve Holvey, his mother-in-law, or his young son. All she knew was that what she and Maggie Holvey experienced that night was something she couldn’t easily explain away with her science. Hell, she couldn’t easily explain it with her faith. Skinner had warned her when she had returned to the X-files six months before that they could no longer have cases like these. She feared the reprimand that would come. Silently, she filed into Skinner’s outer office, as Kim, his secretary, let him know that Scully was waiting outside for their meeting. Scully settled in for a long wait, but he immediately opened the door and beckoned her in.

“Agent Scully!” He gestured towards one of the chairs across his desk. She settled down into it silently as he moved behind his desk, his expression neutral as she watched him. She glanced over his shoulder for the ubiquitous smoking man who seemed to like to lurk there when she was about to be chewed out for some particular offense. But his office was remarkably smoke free that day, and surprisingly, she didn’t see thunderclouds forming on the horizon.

“I have to commend you, Agent Scully, on the work you and Agent Mulder have been doing of late.” Skinner began his opening salvo much more complimentary than she expected. She tried not to stare at him in utter surprise, nodding gratefully as he passed her a file across his desk. She wondered if he had bothered reading her incomplete report on the Holvey case or the Gibsonton case for that matter. She quietly accepted the file as it slid under her fingers, and opened it up to study the contents inside briefly.

“There was a prison break at the Cumberland State Correctional Facility in Dinwiddie County, Virginia.” Skinner cut to the chase as Scully glanced across the US Marshal case file in front of her. “The Justice Department has asked the FBI to assist US Marshals in apprehending two inmates who escaped the facility using a prison laundry chute. Marshals are on the case as you would expect with a prison break, but Justice feels having someone with the FBI’s investigative capabilities on hand to assist would be welcome.”

Welcome? Somehow Scully highly doubted that. “Why would Justice question the US Marshals ability to track down escaped inmates? Its part of their duties as US Marshals,”

“I don’t make the orders from Justice, Agent Scully, I merely carry them out,” Skinner rumbled lowly, either unable or unwilling to expand further on the situation. “I’ve assigned you and Agent Mulder to the case.”

“Our normal work is on the X-files, sir, I don’t know how qualified we are to do this?” It was her diplomatic way of asking why he was assigning the two of them to a clearly non-X-files case, one she knew Mulder was going to balk at almost as soon as he heard about it. Mulder did not play nice with others in the FBI; she doubted he’d be much improved with members of the US Marshal service.

“As you know, Agent Scully, you and Agent Mulder’s assignment on the X-files is granted to you with the understanding that should the Bureau have need of your services on more mainline cases that you willingly move to perform your sworn duties as Federal officers of the law.” Skinner’s tone was brisk and perfunctory. He knew why she was asking her question and despite his conciliatory tone to this point was not in the mood for Mulder’s temper tantrums about his own, personal work. “The X-files is not considered important enough for the Bureau to exempt it when talent and skills are required elsewhere for other work. I’m sure you will, of course, be able to share this with Agent Mulder when he asks why it is I’ve assigned this case to the both of you?”

In other words, Scully realized, he was assigning them this case because no one else wanted to do it and stop asking questions. He wasn’t going to back down from it. “I understand completely, sir, and I’ll pass that information along to Agent Mulder.”

“Please, also remind your partner, Agent Scully, that as a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation he’s expected to work in concert with all branches of the Department of Justice, even the ones he doesn’t like.” Skinner’s dark eyes glimmered for the briefest of moments. “I know the two of you have been moonlighting on the side, prodding at cases across other parts of the Executive Branch, but I really don’t relish the idea of having to field a complaint from fellow, Federal law enforcement about the conduct of my agents. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, sir.” It was no surprise then that she had been called up separate from her partner on this case then. Skinner was asking her personally to baby-sit her partner and prevent him from doing what Mulder normally did when asked to work outside of the normal, FBI channels, make an ass out of himself. She rose, file in hand, realizing her boss was dismissing her, and made her way out of his office, shooting Kim a polite smile as she made her way to the elevator.

It was true, just because she was on permanent assignment on the X-files with Mulder it didn’t mean that Skinner couldn’t call either of them up for any more regular work at any time. But it struck her as odd that Skinner would assign them to a case of inter-Justice Department cooperation knowing what Mulder’s track record with people was. He obviously wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for any sort of work like this, and there were many eager and willing young bucks out there in the Bureau who would love to run with this case and make a name for themselves enough to be assigned to more prestigious work. Why them and why now? Was it because of their recent spate of dud cases, none of which had an easy answer she could tie up in a bow in her reports to Skinner? Or was it because someone wanted to remind them both to not squander the favor done for them by opening the X-files again, they could just as easily be taken away from them once more, and perhaps for good this time.

Why was it she had to always be so paranoid about her work, she sighed heavily as she stepped off the elevator that led to their basement office? Down the hall she could hear the sound of Mulder in the office, opening and closing file drawers. He wasn’t going to like this at all, she realized, but he didn’t have a choice. She drew in her breath, holding it before she entered, preparing herself for the barrage of petulance she knew would come from Mulder.

“We have a case.” She smiled brightly as she stepped in, her partner already pulling files and flipping through them intently.

“We do?” He frowned in surprise at the file in her hands. “That’s not an X-file.”

“No, it’s a case of escaped inmates in Virginia.” Scully handed to him as immediately he began to roll his eyes and huff, without even the dignity of opening the file.

“Who gave it to us?”

“Skinner of course,” she replied, “And he wanted to me to remind you that our work on the X-files is not an imperative for the FBI, and we can and will be asked to work on other cases at the will of the Bureau.” She shot him a pointed look despite his disgust. “Which means, Mulder, you have to suck it up, do it, and get it over with. And he warned you to play nice with the US Marshals as well.”

“When do I not play nice,” he retorted defensively, grumbling as he flipped through the paperwork. She didn’t dignify his complaint with an answer.

“Why would they request FBI to back us the US Marshals? They do this stuff everyday. They are perfectly capable of catching a couple of state prison inmates. I don’t see why the FBI is even involved in this.” His eyes flashed in irritation as he tossed the paperwork on his desk.

“It came from the Justice Department, Mulder, not from the Bureau. It was their request and Skinner can’t countermand that. Besides, perhaps the Marshals asked for the FBI involvement in particular. I’m sure they’ll be able to explain once we get down there.”

“So were are doing grunt work for no particular reason anyone can fathom, chasing after a couple of clever convicts?” Mulder threw himself petulantly into his chair, glaring at nothing in particular on his desk. “Any snot-nosed, green agent could do this. Why would Skinner assign it to us?”

“Perhaps someone is trying to remind us of where we stand with the X-files, Mulder. You have to admit, our last few cases were less than exemplary. Our position in this department is tenuous at best, you know that, and we can be taken off of it at anyone’s behest. It could just be a simple exercise in reminding us that no matter what luxury we think we’ve been given with these cases, we still are members of the FBI.” That certainly was the sound of Skinner’s speech in his office. Perhaps there had been those above his head who had started to wonder why it was he allowed to agents within his division to run amok in cases the FBI hardly considered a priority.

Her words had the effect of quelling the worst of Mulder’s pouting, though he still glared mutinously at the file in front of him. “I don’t like this, Scully. I don’t like not knowing what is going on and why they summarily assign us a case anyone in the Bureau could run. That only happens when something is going on, and I don’t care what Skinner says about the Justice Department and its requests.”

“Play nice for this one case, Mulder, go along with it, and they will leave you alone to play with your monsters and aliens for a while.” She tried to reassure him. “Seriously, it’s probably nothing more than a formality, something to make the higher ups happy for a while. Just behave yourself long enough to get the case done, help capture the inmates, and we can do whatever strange, oddball case you want next.”

Mulder didn’t look as if he believed her, but he relented. “Just as long as you know that if something smartass comes out of my mouth, it’s a congenital defect I’ve had since birth.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mulder,” she sighed, already mentally preparing herself to smooth the way between her partner and whatever macho, gun-totting US Marshal he managed to piss off.


	104. Infection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully gets into someone's face.

Say what you wanted about Mulder's paranoia, Scully was beginning to think that no matter how cracked he sounded, he was usually never terribly far from the truth. Something was going on at the Cumberland State Correctional Facility and it was far from being as simple as escaped convicts the US Marshals had trouble catching. She watched quietly as Mulder followed the bevy of marshals out of the prison while she remained, studying the restricted section where the men in HAZMAT gear had previously been. A door sealed off the area, its only view in a glass panel that looked into a darkened hallway, lit by dim, florescent lights overhead. No one could be seen coming or going, though she and Mulder had just seen men in safety gear minutes before. Perhaps, she reasoned, they had moved to other areas of the wing.

She had no business, really, investigating what was going on here, but it struck her as odd that such an extreme medical measure would occur in a prison, especially so soon after a prison escape. Without hesitation, Scully began pounding on the door that locked off that wing of the prison, her palm slapping hard against the reverberating metal. She could hear the echo of it down the empty, tiled hallway. She pounded for what felt like forever, switching hands when she felt the other grow tired. Finally, there was movement at the end of the hallway. At first it didn't come any further, as if whomever it was hoped that if it waited it out long enough she would go away. She resorted to calling through the thick glass instead.

"I'm a federal agent with the FBI, I need to ask you some questions," she yelled as loud as her voice would carry. The person didn't seem to react at first. "Please, this is part of a federal investigation. I need to know what is going on."

The figure reluctantly slumped its shoulders and then came down the hall at a quick, nervous trot. He was a man in a white lab coat, dark haired, with thick glasses on and a dour expression on his round face. He wasn't pleased by having to speak to her and Scully suspected he would try to give her the brush off as soon as he could.

"You aren't allowed in here, I'm sorry," he said, his voice muffled by the thick pane of reinforced glass in the door.

Scully pulled out her badge and pressed it up against the glass right in front of his face. "I'm a federal agent, sir, and I'm here investigating the recent prison break. I need to know what is going on here."

"We don't have anything to do with that, Agent…" He paused to read her name off her badge. "Agent Scully, please, carry on with your investigation elsewhere."

"Why is this area under quarantine," she demanded as she put away her badge.

"I am sorry, I do have work to do." He began to turn away from her.

"Who are you, sir?"

"I'm sorry, this is a restricted area," he replied firmly, unwilling to relent even that much information.

"Who are you," Scully repeated as the man grimaced, clearly conflicted on how much he should even say to her.

"Doctor Osborne," he finally admitted.

"Are you the prison doctor?"

He paused. "No."

"Who do you work for?"

"The CDC," he responded evenly. The Centers for Disease Control. They were usually only called in for a massive infection of an unknown or unusual contagion that could pose a serious health risk to the general population at large. What sort of infection could possibly break out in the closed, sealed off environs of a state correctional facility?

"You work for the Centers for Disease Control? What are you doing here?"

Doctor Osborne stared at her evenly for a long, quiet moment, and then shook his head, turning away. He wasn't going to answer her, and frankly, Scully found that unacceptable. She banged on the door again, this time angry that he had turned his back on her.

"Sir, I'm a medical doctor! I want to know what's going on here."

He turned to stare back at her, as if considering.

"Sir, if you don't let me in," she paused for a moment. What sort of threat could she really give him? If he were CDC, he would be here under the auspices of the Federal Government, the same as she. But why would the CDC be here and not cooperate with a federal agent performing her duties?

She played the hunch. "A lot of people in Washington are going to find out that you're conducting a secret quarantine in here."

This gave the doctor pause. Her guess must have had some merit, because she saw fear flash briefly in his eyes as he swallowed uncomfortably. Resigned, he unlocked the door and opened it, slightly, as he looked at her.

"I'm under strict orders," he practically whispered, his tone nervous as she glanced furtively around the empty hallway.

"So am I," she murmured solemnly. He paused, eyeing her carefully, before trying to close the door once again. But she brushed past him, into the restricted section, her slightly body easily moving into the crack between the door and jamb. Without a word she moved down the hall, her small, high-heeled feet clipping a quick, steady staccato as she rushed down the hallway to see what was going on, before he could even stop her. Behind, she could hear his nervous, furtive steps as he tried to catch up.

"All I can tell you is that there is a flu-like illness spreading among some of the prisoners," Osborne pleaded.

Her mind processed through potential outbreaks that could cause this sort of secret reaction. There was one disease she could think of that she feared. But the alien virus did not have the flu-like symptoms that Osborne was describing. That didn't mean that it couldn't be another engineered virus, a cousin to the one that had so nearly killed off her partner. Her mouth went dry at the idea that it could be that one again.

"How many are infected," Scully shot back.

"Fourteen so far," Osborne confirmed for her.

"Any deaths?"

Osborne paused here, fear flashing in his eyes. "Ten of the fourteen."

Scully stopped in her tracks, turning to stare in disbelief at the man. The breath fled her lungs then as she realized just what he was saying, just how contagious and deadly this new disease was. And it suddenly occurred to her why it was that the Justice Department was so very keen to get the FBI involved on what should be a routine job for Federal Marshals. They needed to find these convicts and they needed to find they quickly, before they got out into the general populace.

"What are the chances the men who escaped are infected?"

He didn't answer her. He didn't have to. He turned back down the hall as she gasped, rushing to follow him.

"What do you know about the disease," she demanded as the man walked into a makeshift lab, set up in an office area of the prison wing, filled with equipment, computers, and other research materials, all brought in specifically to study the quarantine.

"The patients develop a high fever, nausea, dizziness. Within a few hours, rashes form on the skin that turn into pustules that quickly become infected with pus. From what we can tell, it is the infection that seems to be the contagion, spreading the disease from person to person. Within thirty-six to forty-eight hours most of those infected with the virus are dead."

"And the treatment?" Obviously they had to have worked on some sort of treatment, correct?

Osborne's face tightened as he looked away. "None yet."

"So you mean to tell me there are two convicts, on the loose in the general populace, infected with a disease that moves quickly and has no treatment yet?" She wanted to be dumbfounded by this, but found she couldn't be, not after everything she had seen and discovered with the alien virus.

Osborne couldn't meet her eyes. "We haven't had enough time…" He trailed off, helpless.

"The US Marshals don't know, do they?" She knew that she and Mulder didn't. Osborne shook his head.

"I have to tell them." She reached for her cell phone, turning spinning from the doctor, but he tried to grab her arm, to prevent her from moving out into the hallway.

"You can't! No one is supposed to know." His eyes widened anxiously. "If this were to get out, there would be panic in the streets, questions being asked, the reaction would be devastating."

"My partner and those men are out there searching for two men infected with this disease. They have no idea what they are dealing with, and might only make the spread of the infection worse unless they know what it is exactly that is going on. Are you willing to risk the lives of thousands just to save some of your face?" She spat her final words out in disbelief as Osborne reared back in shock, mortified by her accusations.

"Of course not," he muttered as he let go of her elbow.

"I didn't think so." She turned from him, moving back out into the hallway, dialing Mulder's number. He picked up within one ring, with a clipped and distant, "Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me. I'm starting to get a picture of what's going on here."

"What did you find?" She could hear background noise over his phone, the sounds of passing cars maybe? Certainly he was outside.

"There's some kind of deadly contagion sweeping the lockdown population." She paced the concrete floor as down the hall the door opened and she could hear the wheels of a gurney begin to rattle, bouncing off the tiled walls ominously.

"Deadly?" She could hear the anxiety in Mulder's even monotone. She didn't blame him. "How deadly?"

"Well, from what I've seen so far, thirty-six hours after infection, deadly."

Mulder was silent on the other end for a long moment. "Well, is there a chance any of the escaped men were infected?"

"The exact nature of this thing or how it is spread is unclear." She swallowed as she turned to see a patient, a convict in a quarantine case wheeled past her, a man in a containment suit pushing the gurney, staring at her as she spoke, clearly confused as to who she was and what she was doing standing there on the phone. "So is their exposure to it and any danger they might pose."

"I'd say these guys are a danger in any event." Mulder replied grimly.

Scully hung up her phone, clicking it off as angry steps approached her. She turned to see Osborne in the wake of a tall, wiry man who carried himself with the sort of authority that seemed to cow Osborne completely. The doctor shrank behind this newcomer, whose face was twisted in irritation at her.

"I don't care who you are or what your business is, I want you out of here right now," he demanded, towering over her in angry agitation.

Scully's father had been a Naval captain. She herself was an FBI agent and a doctor and had been through the trenches in her residency turn on the ER. She wasn't a woman who could be easily cowed or bullied by anyone, especially not by men who looked as if they had something to hide, "Not until I have answers," she replied coldly, meeting his furious gaze head on.

"You're in violation of federal statutes," he insisted. Though, which ones, Scully would dare him to name. He was bluffing and she knew it.

"I'm a Federal agent, sir," she replied blandly. He hadn't expected that response, but immediately looked doubtful.

"Who were you on the phone to," he demanded peremptorily.

"To my partner, who needs to know if the men he's pursuing are infected." She glanced back at Osborne who started just a tad guiltily. Obviously he hadn't been able to tell this man, perhaps his superior, any of this before he stormed out here and made an ass of himself.

"That information is unavailable," the man snapped.

"Well, then I want to see charts and I want access to the infirmary." She had to know something of what was going on, something to warn Mulder and the Marshals out there of what they were dealing with.

"You'll see what I'll let you see," the man haughtily denied her, as he spun on his heels and stormed off. For a brief moment Osborne stayed, looking apologetic, before he rushed off in the wake of his colleague. Whether he was apologizing for not explaining to him or feeling guilty for not sticking up for her was hard to say as he shuffled quickly off down the hallway.

What the hell, Scully breathed as she wandered back into the lab facility, stunned by the display that she had just witnessed. A man claiming he had federal jurisdiction over her investigation had just tried to shut her down. But short of FEMA coming in and declaring the sight a disaster area, nothing could prevent her as a Federal officer from coming in and performing her work. What was going on here? And why were they trying to hide it? In disgust she reached across one of the medical tables set up in the lab for rubber gloves and a surgical mask, determined to get to the bottom of this no matter what Osborne's superior said, even if it meant he had to bodily throw her out of the building. And somehow, now she had made it this far, she doubted the man would do that. Something about him and the work he was doing here smacked of something not right, and Scully wanted to know what it was before innocent people, her partner included, were infected and died because of it.


	105. Confidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully may be infected.

Doctor Osborne was so sad and hesitant, she almost forgot for a moment just what it was he was saying. "Agent Scully, you were there when the pustule erupted on me, which means you may also be infected."

His words had the effect of setting her entire skin aflame, as she had the mad desire to scratch it off, terror lodging sourly in her throat. "I didn't have any of it on me."

"We can't be sure." The doctor shook his balding head. "It's highly infectious and contagious. Even if you didn't see it landing on you, it might very well have invaded your system." His eyes were large and sympathetic behind his thick lenses.

"But, this case, my partner..." She thought desperately of Mulder out there, unsure of the lethal potential of the case he was working.

"The National Guard has been ordered out by the governor of Virginia. Ostensibly they are here to enforce the lock down after reported unrest in the facility, but it's really to enforce the quarantine on this level. No one can come in, and no one can get out, including ourselves."

"Just what is going on here?" Scully stared at the insect sample she pulled out of the boil on one of the subjects being burned downstairs.

"Testing," Osborne replied heavily. "Like I said, Pinck Pharmaceuticals was interested in the enzyme the insect produces. It acts as a dilation agent and could be used in a number of pharmacological applications. When our field agent in Costa Rica investigated, we had no way of knowing that some of the insects were carriers for this strange disease. He disappeared. He was never found. It's now suspected that he probably died of this very same disease, unaware that the insects he studied were in fact carriers of it."

"And did Pinck Pharmaceuticals have any idea about the disease?"

"At first, no." Osborne swallowed carefully as he fidgeted with various tools by the telescope. "The parasite was discovered while we were researching the insects themselves. Because of the controlled conditions, of course, no one at the facility was infected with the disease. And controlled testing amongs lab specimens proved inconclusive."

"What do you mean by inconclusive?" This was all starting to sound horribly like Pinck engineered this whole thing from the beginning. Scully felt ill at the implication of what that could mean.

"It was suggested by someone that the parasite be tested amongs a controlled, human populace in order to better understand its effects. It's by far not the first time such a test has been suggested, nor will it be the last." Osborne met Scully's horrified gaze frankly. Pinck has been running these sorts of tests for years, mostly in prisons, populations where no one will notice a small, controlled outbreak like this."

"Except for maybe the prisoner's families," Scully spat out, disgusted but the callousness by which the corporation just used human beings as guinea pigs.

"There was that," Osborne muttered uncomfortably. "Pinck had run such tests before, mostly to see the effects of untested drugs on specific diseases. Occasionally, we ran tests to see the effects of untested diseases."

"Like this one here?" The pieces were now starting to fall into frightening place. "You ran the test here to see what the parasite would do. You had no intention of finding a cure for it."

"Well, not now at least. The eventual goal is of course to find a cure for it, but we needed to understand its effects, the course it ran in the human body first. And the only way to do that was to run a controlled test. Except, the test didn't stay controlled."

"The prison break! You requested the Justice Department to call the FBI in on this?"

"I don't know who requested what, or what sort of influence was used. I'm just a research doctor for Pinck, I'm…I'm just doing my job." He sounded so confused, so befuddled by this entire turn of events. "I had never questioned any of this before, had never thought to question it. You're a doctor, you understand. Sometimes the thrill of discover often outweighs the ethical questions about what is going on and what your company is doing. And you turn a blind eye to it as they do things, unspeakable things. Because, you tell yourself, it's all in the name of science. It's all in the greater good." 

He laughed mirthlessly as he turned away from the microscope before him. "I've worked on things that have boggled the mind and said nothing, Agent Scully. And perhaps that doesn't make me any better than those who engineered this outbreak. Perhaps this is my payback for my silence." He rubbed idly at his neck.

Scully was numb as she processed all of this. She thought of the alien virus that had infected Mulder and her suspicions that it was really an engineered disease, manufactured by the government for an unknown purpose. Could Pinck Pharmaceuticals be one of the many scientific groups employed by the government to aid them in disease research and development? And what work had they done, if any on the alien virus? Was this strange, new outbreak in this prison just a test run of something else the government was planning, something with a virus far more dangerous and insidious even than this deadly one? Deep Throat's warning about the tests on school children came back to haunt her. If the CDC wasn't involved with this, then some government agency had to know about what Pinck was up to. Someone had to have engineered the events so that the governor of Virginia would send in the National Guard. And someone had to mobilize herself and Mulder into taking this case.

Herself and Mulder specifically taking this case… 

It hit her then what Mulder had said at the start, something about this case made him suspicious. Why would they, two agents who didn't work the regular rotation of cases, be assigned to something as routine as assisting on a prison break? Except if someone in the government wanted specifically the two of them to work on this case, to find out about this outbreak. For what purpose then? To connect the dots from the Erlenmeyer flask that Deep Throat had her take months ago back to Pinck Pharmaceuticals? Or to give Mulder all the ammunition he needed to fly off the handle about government conspiracies to infect the populace, and thus close down the X-files for good?

"Is there a way I can test myself to see if I'm infected?" She reached for her phone, her mind still reeling at the possibilities of what this could mean.

"Yes," Osborne confirmed. "It's a long process though. And we still don't have a treatment for the disease."

She could be infected and she would be doomed to die the same sort of death the other men in this wing had. Still, it was better to know now before she tried to leave the facility, than to find out later after she had already gone. And if this was her time to die…so be it. But she had managed to avoid death so many times in this last year, perhaps there was a bit more Irish luck stashed away somewhere she didn't know about.

"Let me call my partner and explain to him the situation. He is on the outside and he will then know the information, in case I don't make it out of this." She nearly stumbled on her last statement. She didn't want to think in those terms. But she had to face facts, especially to herself.

"Even if he does know, Agent Scully, he can't tell anyone. This information can't get out into the public," Osborne's insisted, a hint of panic lacing the edges of his voice. "The hysteria even the idea of this would cause could be catastrophic."

"I know." And she did. If this were to get out in public, mass hysteria would ensue. "Still someone has to know the truth and right now he's all that I have."


	106. The Line Is Behind Me, I Crossed It Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skinner calls Mulder out for crossing lines he tries to straddle.

Even Scully knew better than to cross one of Mulder's infamous tempers. As blinding as his belief could be, so too could his anger when it was roused and Scully found herself biting her lip nervously as Mulder's jaw set and his eyes flashed dangerously at their boss. He held the contents of the file she had pulled up on Robert Torrance, patient zero for the epidemic in the Cumberland Correctional Facility. Pinck Pharmaceuticals had covered it up, all of it, all the evidence of their illicit testing on prisoners. Scully watched her partner nervously as he laughed, a cold, humorless sound, glaring up at Skinner. "That's why we were given this assignment, right? They knew all along, so that even if we succeeded in finding the truth, we'd be discredited as part of it. Am I right?"

Skinner stared back at Mulder mutely, neither confirming nor denying it.

"Am I right?" Mulder rang harshly as Scully debated on whether she should call him down now or allow him to rage at their superior for placing them willingly into such an untenable situation. They had been damned from the beginning. Even if they had come forward with the truth about Pinck's covert work, and the governments collusion on it, they could simply say it was a grossly unfortunate mistake, make a pay out to the victims families, and settle with the FDA. And in the meantime she and Mulder would be made to look like hysterical FBI snoops who over blew a simple clerical error, nearly allowing a potential deadly virus out into the populace. A pair of nice, easy, convenient scapegoats. It would have certainly gotten them out of the hair of the FBI. But what upset Scully more was the fact that Skinner knew this was the risk and gave them the case anyway, even when she had questioned him point blank about he implications of it. And he had skillfully avoided it by reminding her of the thin edge she and Mulder stood on working the X-files.

"You never had a chance, Agent Mulder." Skinner met Mulder's ire without blinking. "For every step you take, they're three steps ahead."

"Well, what about you?" Mulder challenged. "Where do you stand?"

"I stand right on the line that you keep crossing," Skinner shot back pointedly, dark eyes glittering. So it stood, their boss who never wavered from the fine line he straddled between the truth and lies, from keeping the public ignorant of the horrible things that he was perfectly aware of, and exposing the conspiracies and questions he was equally disturbed by. It was in that moment Scully realized just how precarious a position their supervisor stood in, that small space between doing what was right and doing what was necessary. And in many ways he was the only protection they had from those forces that could so easily tear both herself and Mulder down. Mulder, filled with his righteous belief, would be hard pressed to see that. As it was, he shook his head in disgust, as she reached for his arm, urging him to leave this be, to come away before he said something or did something they all knew he would regret.

"Come on," she murmured softly to her partner. "Let's go."

Mulder followed her, still blazing angrily, but silently doing as she asked. As she reached for the door of Skinner's office, he called out. "Agent Mulder!"

They both turned to glance at him. Scully wasn't sure there was anything their boss could do in this moment to make any of this right, to make any of the risk they took in this case right. Skinner paused thoughtfully, as if considering just what it was he wanted to say. "I'm saying this as a friend. Watch your back. This is just the beginning."

Without a word, Scully opened the door to Skinner's office and filed out, Mulder close behind her. They remained silent as they made their way down the hall and to the elevator, taking the crowded car in silence till they reached the seclusion of their basement office.

"As a friend," Mulder spat out half to himself as the doors opened and he waited for Scully to exit first. He followed behind, stalking the short distance of hallway towards their office. "Some friend, who hands us a shit sandwich and expects us to be grateful about it."

"He does have something of a point, Mulder." Not much of one, Scully would grant, but enough of a point that she was willing to grant him that much. "It's his influence that allowed for the X-files to be reopened, and he's said little in the face of cases that had little to no satisfactory closure."

"And so we should roll over and take it when we've been set up?" Mulder slammed open the office door, uncaring as it banged heavily against the far wall as he stalked behind his desk and threw himself into his chair. It creaked ominously as he turned it to face her. "They sent us on that case on purpose, to discredit us, to use it to shut down Spooky Mulder and his crazy theories for good, and barring that, they can show us as being complicit in the campaign to shut up a public health epidemic by not revealing the truth when it was right in our grasp. So much for Mulder's campaign of truth, he couldn't even be honest about that." He glowered darkly at her, then flipped his chair back enough to stare up at the ceiling above. "And Skinner allowed it to happen."

"Perhaps he didn't have a choice," Scully offered diplomatically, moving to sit on the edge of her table, her short legs hanging several inches off the linoleum floor of their office.

"Didn't have a choice? Scully, he could have given it to someone else." Mulder snapped his chair upwards again. "You asked him point blank why he was assigning it to us and he gave you a bullshit answer about resources and our position on the X-files. He was told to give it to us and it was a set up from the beginning."

"Even if it was, Mulder, do you think Skinner really had the ability to say anything to anyone about it?" Why Scully was sticking up for their boss, she wasn't sure. She was as angry with Skinner as Mulder was, even angrier knowing that he had lied to her face when she had asked him directly. "He's the closest thing to an ally we have in the Bureau, without him we have nothing. And you are dead set on crucifying him when he's stuck in the position of being in the middle. He can't appear to favor you and your work too much, else he could be discredited along with you and lose whatever influence he has to keep you and this work going. And yet he has overlooked the last few cases, the unsatisfactory reports, and given both of us a pass on work that would have ended our asses in a sling with any other AD. I'm not saying what Skinner did here was right or even fair, but faced with the alternative, Mulder, what choice do we have?"

Practical, pragmatic Scully, she thought. Personally she understood and felt every bit of Mulder's ire, but she also saw what the alternative was. Without Skinner they had nothing, not even that small, inch of support that his assistance offered. "They are watching us, Mulder, every move we make, every thing we do, and they are going to set themselves up to try and thwart us no matter what we do. You heard what Skinner said, this is just the beginning, they didn't succeed in this, but there will be other attempts, other things they will throw at us to try and trip us up, to make us fail. And Skinner isn't going to be able to protect us from all of it or even be able to warn us. Hell, he might have to be the one who will kick our ass for it. But if we turn our backs on him now, who do we have left when they try something else again?"

She had no idea whether her words got through to her truculent partner or not. He sat, staring at the basketball on his desk as if he'd rather grab it and hurl it at her than listen to the reason that she spoke. "He participated in this, Scully, he knew what they were doing, he knew all along, and he did nothing to warn us, to warn you. You could have died in that prison from an unknown disease! Innocent people could have been infected. Can we, in all good conscience, ignore that in favor one tepid friend in a high place? Skinner says he's standing on that line I keep crossing, but what if he was really asked to think about that line and that position? What if something truly came to challenge him on it? Where do you think he would fall, with us?" Mulder looked doubtful. "This isn't schoolyard politics where you get to sit back comfortably and watch both sides play against the middle, hoping in at the end to join the winning side."

"I think Skinner's well aware of that, but you've spent nearly seven years bucking the system and choosing the side you believed was right. And you're in the basement, held to the whims of those shadowy figures in power that would seek to destroy you. Think about it, if you were Skinner, if you were in the position he was in, wouldn't you do the same? He can't help us if he becomes a crusader, Mulder." She hated to admit that truth. "Besides, we now have one bit of evidence, we know now that the government has been testing new viruses and drugs to effect them on particular populaces without their permission, just like in Wisconsin, and now at the prison. It's not just conjecture on our part, but admitted by a pharmaceutical doctor."

"It's evidence we can never bring to light, Scully, not without damning ourselves in the process," Mulder replied despondently.

"True, but that is a clue at least, a place to work on for the future. We know about the alien virus." She hated referring to it as "alien", but lacked a better term for it. "We know about the testing in Wisconsin and in the prison. We know that the government is paying for and allowing private, secret studies on engineered and foreign illnesses and is working in collusion with pharmaceutical companies in order to do this."

"For what purpose," Mulder pointed out glumly, slumping in his desk chair, un-cheered by the bright side Scully tried to pose to him.

"That's the part we have to figure out still, Mulder." She smiled softly, sliding down from her table, her heels gently landing on the floor. "Like you always are telling me, the truth is out there. We just have to look for it a little harder."

This finally did bring a smile to his face.


	107. True Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully confesses what she told Kelly Ryan about Mulder.

It wasn't everyday that Scully got a phone call from a former student asking for her expertise and assistance on a case. Frankly, as a teacher of criminal pathology, her skills weren't exactly hard to find elsewhere. And as most of her students became FBI agents in their own right or joined a forensics team somewhere in the US, the only real insight she could ever give to any of them was what to do when a mutant breaks into your home, attempting to eat your liver - or tips on how to deal with the world's most exasperating and truculent partner. Though, on this case so far, Mulder had been nothing but the model, FBI agent in front of her former protégé, Kelly Ryan. Scully had warned him that she was new, she was nervous about getting the FBI involved, and really just wanted someone to aid and hold her hand on her first, major case, without getting too involved. Mulder had, up to this point, behaved himself rather admirably. He'd been polite, listened carefully, and had even showed a dash of charm when Kelly had admitted that she'd heard things from Scully about her partner. Much to Scully's everlasting appreciation, Mulder had sounded professional, sane, and rational their entire introduction.

That was until Detective Ryan asked her partner his true opinion on what he thought was going on. Then Mulder was as candid and honest as Scully had prayed he wouldn't be.

"At first blush? Spontaneous human combustion."

Poor Kelly's jaw nearly smacked the floor as Mulder turned away. It was a quite common reaction for many detectives, not just newly minted ones like Kelly Ryan, and when she turned questioning eyes to Scully, she could only pat Kelly's arm and reassure her that she was doing fine.

"Having a little fun?" Scully caught up to Mulder at the elevator, glaring at him in disapproval.

"What are you talking about?" The glimmer of amusement in his eyes completely ruined the blasé stoicism he was trying to affect.

"Spontaneous human combustion?" She didn't think her eyebrows could reach any higher.

"I have over a dozen case files of human bodies reduced to ash without any attendant burning or melting. Rapid oxidation without heat."

She knew perfectly well what spontaneous human combustion was. "Let's just forget for the moment that there's no scientific theory to support it."

"Okay!" Mulder shrugged cheerfully as they stepped on the elevator.

"Why must you jerk Kelly around on this when its her first case? She's nervous enough." Scully crossed her arms in front of herself, challenging him even as he tried to studiously study the buttons on the wall panel.

"She asked for my theory," he replied pointedly.

"You could have told her something else. You could have said, 'well it is strange, but we'll give you any help and assistance we can'. Anything but 'spontaneous human combustion'. She came to me, Mulder, because she values my opinion as a scientist and she was one of my best students at the Academy. She's not an idiot you can jerk around because you feel they are stomping on your ego."

"What have you been telling her about me?" Mulder deftly changed the subject, glancing sideways at her as the elevator came to a stop. A small, devilish smile played on his lips.

Oh yes! He had warned they would talk later. Scully's mouth went dry for the briefest of moments as her face flushed. "Well, you know when we were separated and I was back at Quantico, rumors abounded."

"About me," he prodded curiously.

"About us," she clarified, knowing that sounded horribly suggestive. Not that it would have surprised Mulder in the least, he was the one who pointed out to her that everyone in the Bureau suspected them of sleeping together anyway. "I mean, they were curious about the work we did on the X-files."

"And about Spooky Mulder and what he's like?" Mulder didn't look ruffled by dropping this. 

She cleared her throat sheepishly. "And about Spooky Mulder, yes." 

Why did this embarrass her so, she had nothing to hide. She followed behind Mulder's long footsteps as the elevator opened to the lobby of the Hotel George Mason, filled with dark panels and cream marble. For the craziest of moments, Scully felt like every eye of every patron and service staff member at the hotel was fixed on her as Mulder prodded her, her cheeks brighter than her own hair at the moment. "I mean, everyone's heard about you and she was just curious what you were like?"

"So what did you tell her?" Mulder pulled a ticket out of his coat pocket to pass to the waiting valet, who rushed to fetch their rental car from where it was parked.

"Are you expecting me to say I told her you were crazy, out-of-control, and off your rocker?"

"She wouldn't have had that positive a reaction if you had told her the bad stuff." He smirked lazily, cockily grinning as she refused to meet his eye. "Come on, spill Scully! What did you tell her?"

"Nothing, Mulder. I told her you were a brilliant profiler, you had an amazing intellect, a keen mind, you were witty…"

"You think I'm witty?" Mulder beamed.

"Keep this up, I'll change my mind."

"And what else?" Mulder ignored her threat.

"And nothing else. I said nothing but positive things."

"Oh come on, Scully! Those are all things she would have heard from anyone."

"Everyone thinks you are insane and are chasing after aliens at every turn."

"Point," Mulder conceded as their car pulled up the drive of the hotel. "But, she said she's heard a lot about me and that's not a lot."

He wasn't going to let this go, and she knew it. Mulder was amazingly stubborn and refused to give up on anything, his sister's abduction, the X-files, or what she said to a pretty, young girl about him. This was maddening.

"I said you had scary insight into almost anything we worked on, you're a man of great conviction and boundless belief, and someone whose faith and trust is not easily earned, but once you have it's the greatest of gifts, that of a true friend."

He clearly hadn't expected that sort of answer. He stared at her as he paid the valet, keys in hand for a long moment as Scully found herself studying the blunt toe of her shoes. Really, did they need to do this here, have this sort of admission between the two of them, where God and everyone could see?"

"You really said that?" He sounded shocked that she would, especially when a year ago things were looking so bleak for them and their work.

"I did," she admitted softly. "And I meant it then and I mean it now. You're a great man to work with, Mulder, and no matter how many times they throw the name Spooky at me, I for one know who you really are. And even if you believe in spontaneous human combustion, it's an honor working with you."

He was silent for long moments, clearly at a loss as to what to say. "Thank you, Scully…I guess…I guess I just wouldn't have expected you to say something like that to anyone out loud, at least anyone who worked in law enforcement."

Why would he think that? She surprised in her own right he would assume she wouldn't say something like that. "I guess you've learned something about me as well, Mulder."

He nodded slowly as he rounded around the car to the driver's side. Scully crawled into the passengers one. There was silence between then, an awkward, strained sort of silence, as if Scully had made some sort of massively secret confession to her partner. In a way she felt as if she had. And perhaps it needed to be said between them, with all of the near death experiences she had this last year, she needed to tell Mulder just how much she cared for and respected the relationship that the two of them had.

"I'm glad that you were honest with Ryan. Though, I sort of wish you had told her I was cute or something." Mulder mumbled into the silence, his effort to break the stilted uncomfortably that now lingered in the car.

She felt an evil grin tug at the corners of her mouth. "Who says I didn't tell her that?"


	108. Physics Lessons

Dr. Banton curled on his side in the squad car sent to bring him to the mental facility, crouching down with as little light around him as humanly possible. Scully watched as his tired, nervous face blinked silently as the now lightless squad car made to take him away.

"Imagine if Peter Pan, instead of just losing his shadow, also gained a horrible ability to tear matter apart." Mulder shook his head as he stood beside her. "It would certainly have made that one hell of a different meeting with Wendy."

"I don't see how it's even possible." Scully's mind stretched back to her long ago physics classes at the University of Maryland. "I studied theoretical physics, but nothing to this degree."

"Is it theoretically possible, what happened to him?" Mulder reached into his coat pocket for his ever-present pack of sunflower seeds, cracking one between his teeth.

"Well, the point of theoretical physics is that it could all be possible, given the following of certain parameters."

"So, that's why you decided to re-write Einstein as just a punk-ass, twenty-two-year-old?"

"Well, because I thought I was right." Scully laughed, recalling the first moment she stepped into Mulder's office downstairs and he waived her paper on Einstein and paradoxes in her face. "But you have to admit, my conjecture wasn't exactly out of the box thinking, it was simply looking at the problem from a different angle, from a new interpretation than had previously been studied before. What Dr. Banton and other scientists like him in the quantum fields are doing is extraordinary. They truly see the universe in a way that the rest of us can't really comprehend. It's perhaps the closest, scientific equivalent to a saint or a mystic, someone who can see things in the world that no mere mortal is supposed to see or understand."

"Such as dark matter?"

"Well, dark matter is theoretically another form of matter in the universe, undetectable because it doesn't emit radiation, but it's supposed that it is out there because it has some sort of gravitational effect. It's a key component of the Big Bang Theory, but not much is known about it. And I find it hard to believe that Dr. Banton's theory that his shadow was replaced by the stuff. It's hard to see and harder to quantify, in fact we don't even know for sure that it does exist."

"And yet the entire universe is made of the stuff?" Mulder now sounded the skeptic.

"That's quantum physics for you, we know its out there, we know it exists, but we can't ever prove it to you."

"So, when you scream about things that you can't prove exist in physics, you're a genius. In real life if you scream about things that you can't prove exist, you're called 'spooky' and you hide in a basement?" The irony of this wasn't lost on Mulder and Scully had to admit, the comparison was rather funny.

"Well, in fairness to most physics professors out there, most people think they're crazy and spooky, too, and they get stuck in basements at every university they are at."

"I can guarantee they get better paid by the government than I do!"

"You write a grant on the necessity to find molecules of dark matter that may or may not exist and I'm sure the government will pay you handsomely for that as well," Scully teased as she led the way back to their rental.

Mulder followed, still looking thoughtful. "So, if dark matter is all simply theoretical with no proof of its existence, how do you prove what it is that is going on with Banton's shadow?"

"I haven't seen it, so I couldn't tell you. We don't know for sure that is what is going on. But it's hard to tell what he was doing with that particle accelerator. I've heard of strange things happening in physics labs and not just in those silly movies you are always watching.

"Frankenstein is hardly silly," Mulder protested.

"I'm just saying, things like the splitting of an atom, these were all almost flukes, no one was sure they could recreate it in real life outside of paper. And yet they did. I'd have no way of knowing what Banton did to himself unless I saw his notes and truly understood what it was happening out there."

"And in the meantime, how do we convince the Richmond PD that he needs to be kept in darkness at a mental institution. He killed two cops, Scully, they'll be out for blood, no matter what you the scientist say on the matter."

"We'll just have to see, won't we," she murmured grimly as she got into the car.


	109. Boys' Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully laments the patriarchy.

Mulder's words haunted her as she tossed and turned in her bed, the hard, uncomfortable motel mattress digging into her side as she curled around the pillow. Mulder's admonishment still rang through her ears, even though she didn't want to hear it. He had accused her of letting Kelly's Ryan's ambition get ahead of good sense, of allowing Ryan to put herself ahead of the work. Scully had of course told him he was overreacting, their job had been to come there as consultants, not as agents on a case. Of course he hadn't wanted to hear that. Mulder had stormed off afterwards. Scully hadn't seen him for dinner, which she managed alone at a diner down the street, and when she returned to the hotel by herself, he was still out from his motel room. Let him be in a temper, she had fumed silently, ignoring the niggling hint of guilt and doubt that crept into her seemingly unwavering sense of self-righteousness.

Perhaps, Mulder might have an ounce of truth in his statement. She personally would not have handled this case the way Kelly Ryan had, but Scully knew the pressure the woman was under to perform in an office full of men. Women always had to work twice as hard in law enforcement for the respect they received, often having to go above and beyond what was expected of their male counterparts. Scully herself had run into a good deal of that, both as a pathologist and as an FBI agent. She couldn't blame Kelly for looking towards the doing what was right by her career. It was bad enough bucking the system just by being a woman in their profession, but then to be an argumentative one or one who tried subverted the normal, it could kill a career.

And yet, a small voice in the back of her head pointed out, you sided with Mulder, and you're still here.

She growled as she flopped onto her back, staring up at the darkened ceiling in her room. Mulder had said she had never put herself before the work, and of course she hadn't. For Scully the work always did and always would come first, even above her own career aspirations if needs be. It was the right thing to do, something her father had drilled into her as a child. And yet, clearly, Kelly had ignored that in turning to her superior officers demands, despite what she knew would be good sense. Well…perhaps Kelly knew. Scully wasn't sure she believed all of Mulder's nonsense about Banton being a nuclear bomb in the hands of boy scouts. 

Even so, had she given Kelly slack because she was a woman? Scully hated to believe that. She had never wanted to be given more merit or less just because of her gender, and yet it was clearly a thought that was ever present in her mind. Scully always wondered if she was looked down upon for being a petite, feminine woman, despite her many degrees and her capabilities as an officer. Admittedly, much of her resentment of Mulder's overprotection stemmed from her own brother's assumptions that as a girl she would need to be watched over and coddled like a baby, despite the fact she could shoot better than any of them. Just because God had made her with breasts and a uterus didn't make her stupid, nor did it make her fragile. And yet in some corners of the FBI, the fact that she was a woman wearing a suit and carrying a gun was seen as some sort of crime against all that was decent, as if she had decided to prostitute herself. First you give a woman a gun, then you let her wear pants, next thing you know she'll want equal pay, and that might lead to all sorts of mad, deviant thoughts.

Scully fumed. She could understand Kelly Ryan's frustrations all right. She was trying to survive in a system that didn't want her there. But did that made what she did any more right? Even if it wasn't dark matter that had attached itself to Dr. Banton, clearly something was going on, even if it was all only psychological to Banton. And Kelly wasn't giving proper consideration to the evidence as it was presented.

Perhaps Mulder did have a point. As much as Scully hated to admit it, perhaps Kelly Ryan did care more about her career than the truth. Why else would she call in her old teacher as a consultant? She wanted to look good in front of her bosses, impress her peers, and prove that she could hack it as a detective, even if her skills were unsure and her deduction not altogether thorough. She should have told her bosses this man was a potential threat with a condition that couldn't be explained. But then, would they even have believed her?

In frustration, Scully rolled over in her bed, staring at the hotel alarm clock. It was 5 AM and she had hardly a wink of sleep all night. She would have to spend the morning talking Mulder into going back to DC. She didn't think that there was much else either of them could do in this case and Scully doubted if the locals would truly appreciate the FBI's intrusion any longer. No matter how strange the case of Dr. Banton was it was out of their hands now. And Mulder wasn't going to like hearing that one bit.

The hotel phone beside her bed rang harshly in the stillness of her room.

Scully jumped at the sound, confused. Mulder would have just knocked to rouse her, or perhaps called her cell phone. It sat quiescent by the ringing landline. She reached for it, fumbling in the dark as she pulled it to her ear.

"Scully," she managed as professionally as she could manage.

"Agent Scully, this is Kelly Ryan." The detective's tone was strained and tense on the other end of the phone. "I just got a report from Yaloff Psychiatric Hospital, where Dr. Banton was being kept. Someone broke into his room last night and tried kidnapping him. He's now missing."

"Missing?" Scully sat upright in bed, her feet slipping to the carpeted floor. "How?"

"We are still investigating. We received a call from a nurse an hour ago stating that unidentified men came in attempting remove the doctor." Ryan's confusion and frustration was evident. "Banton could be anywhere now."

Scully felt for her former student. She had tried so hard on this case to do what she thought was right and now all hell had just broken loose. "Listen, Kelly, let me go wake Agent Mulder. We'll be down there as soon as possible."

"He knew, didn't he? Agent Mulder?" Ryan asked, nearly accusatory. "He knew something like this might happen?"

Yes, Scully sighed ruefully, he had known, or at least suspected the danger that Dr. Banton posed. "Agent Mulder is known for having these sorts of key insights, Kelly. And you had no way of knowing he'd be right on this."

"I didn't listen to him because he sounded crazy. And what if he was right?"

He probably was. "You did what you thought was best. You had no way of knowing…"

"Now my superiors are riding my ass for not having enough protection on this guy and my boss and I are starting to look like idiots for not paying attention."

"Kelly," Scully breathed as she tried to think of something, anything to calm down the young detective. "Listen, I'll go wake up Agent Mulder. We'll meet you at the hospital in an hour and we can discuss what Banton's next moves might be, all right?"

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Finally the young woman exhaled, slowly. "Right, I'll see you both there." Without any further farewell, she hung up the phone, leaving Scully's receiver to ring loudly in her ears. She stared at the white plastic briefly as she moved to set it back in its cradle.

Mulder had warned her. He'd warned both of them and neither of them had listened. She had been too defensive of her own young protégé to bother calling her in and telling her Mulder had a point. She hadn't wanted to tell Kelly Ryan that she might be playing with fire in this case because she didn't want to sound and look as crazy as Mulder did, perhaps because even Scully hadn't totally believed Mulder's theories either. Now a man whose shadow had the capability of killing people was on the loose somewhere in Richmond. She didn't relish the thought of what Mulder would say when she woke him up on this. He had warned her and she had been too defensive of Kelly to listen to him.


	110. A Fair Shake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully contemplates the death of Kelly Ryan.

"Kelly Ryan was a young woman of great character and a desire to do right in this world. It was what led her to police work as one of the few female detectives on the Richmond Police Force." The priest eulogized the fallen woman to the crowd of mourners and family, despite the fact they had no body to mourn for. Scully watched with a heavy heart as Kelly Ryan's mother and father, as well as her younger brother and sister all huddled together near the marker they had chosen for the young woman's grave. She would at least be remembered fondly, Scully thought sadly, as someone with so much promise and potential, one who had been taken far to early, in circumstances she was hard pressed to understand.

Scully glanced towards line of waiting cars in the cemetery, her eyes scanning the area for her tall, lanky partner. He had promise to attend with her, but had called her professing he had to attend to something at the police station. Scully regretted that he wasn't there. It was hard enough, seeing someone she had taught and mentored fall like this. It was worse when you felt, in some small way, vaguely responsible for their death. Scully couldn't help but feel that if she had tried to speak to Kelly, to make her listen to what Mulder was trying to tell her, perhaps the young woman would still be there right now, thanking her for her break on her first real case. But she had let doubt creep in, doubt of Mulder and doubt of herself, something Scully couldn't quite forgive. She professed in trusting Mulder, no matter how crazy his ideas, and when it mattered, she had forced him to back off. She hadn't called Ryan on it or insisted that she at least consider what Mulder was asking. And because of that, an innocent woman had died.

"Mourners are invited to pay their respects to the family at the Ryan home," the priest offered to the crowd by way of ending the small, perfunctory service. The family rose and gathered in a sad, small knot that made its way to the waiting vehicles, as the rest of the mourners began to follow in clusters to their cars. Scully stayed, however, crossing across the grass to the simple marker lying over the empty plot of land. It read "Kelly Ryan, 1965-1995." She had been only a year younger than Scully, only a year older than her young brother, Charlie, far too young to have this happen to her. She thought briefly of the marker that Melissa said her mother had made up for her when she had disappeared last summer. Would it had lain in a plot like this in Baltimore, over a body-less plot, with mourners clustered around her devastated mother murmuring how she, Dana, had been far too young to die under the mysterious and unexplained circumstances she had? Would her family have felt the sense of helpless loss? She had no need to question if Mulder would have felt the sense of guilt she felt now. Scully was thankful that he hadn't hurt himself or others in the period when her whereabouts were still very much in question.

She rose, stretching upwards as she spied Mulder, moving against the flow of still straggling mourners. He looked regretful as they made their way towards each other. "How you doing," he asked sympathetically as he glanced back towards the small, plain marker in the grass.

"I'm not sure how to feel about this, Mulder." Of all the people in the world she thought would understand, it was him. "She was my student and she came to me for help."

"I know it must be hard," he offered by way of consolation.

Any harder than sitting with her mother, reviewing her gravestone, Scully wondered absently. She shook her head regretfully. "This shouldn't have happened. This never should have happened." And if she had only said something, forced the issue, perhaps it wouldn't have. Mulder said nothing, but she knew he understood. He understood far better than anyone else possibly did.

"I'm sorry I'm late. I got hung up at the Richmond PD." He walked slowly beside her as they moved across the spring green grass, leisurely walking towards their cars. Around them May was bursting out, cool for this time of year, though Scully could feel a hint of warm summer in the air, always a time of great change for them.

"Doing what?" She glanced sideways up at him.

"A missing person report was filed this morning by a Dr. Morris West. He's a physicist affiliated with Polarity Magnetics."

"I'm not sure I follow you." Dr. Banton had been considered killed, dead at his own hands in the particle accelerator. She and Mulder had both witnessed the body disintegrate before their eyes.

"The missing person was Dr. Christopher Davey. He hasn't been seen or heard from since Banton disappeared." Mulder was getting at something. He had already fitted together the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle in his mind.

"Do they have any leads or know where he might be?"

"No, none." 

Mulder had suspicions. She knew he did. "But you do."

"I've been wondering what if it wasn't Banton we saw in the particle accelerator?"

"Well, if Banton's not dead, then where is he?"

"I have a suspicion about that, too." Mulder stopped, glancing backwards towards Kelly Ryan's empty grave marker. "What if Banton's fears of a brain suck were real?"

"A brain suck?" Scully had images of a ridiculous, large, metal cap with probes and tubes, much like out of an old science fiction film, resting on top of Dr. Banton's head. "You think the government has taken him to suck out all his knowledge on dark matter?"

"Not literally, no." Mulder shifted uneasily from foot-to-foot, clearly bothered. "But what if it was the government who tried to take him that night in the hospital? What if they were the reason that Banton got out and they got to him at Polarity when he arrived there? They took Banton, killed Davey, and then left the body in such a way that if we got there and found it, we'd assume Banton killed himself."

"But who would take him and why?"

"I have a feeling that maybe we were used to lead someone to Charles Banton, that this entire case was a bit of a set up. Why give something as important and strange as this case to a police detective who had hardly earned her badge, one who, conveniently enough just so happened to know you from training she took at Quantico? What if we were meant to be brought on board here, because…because we would ask the questions, make the connections and maybe lead certain parties to Chester Banton?"

Mulder was known for his conspiracies theories, but even this one startled Scully. "Where did you come up with this idea," she demanded warily, wondering how in the world Mulder could justify this line of thinking.

"Because of a certain person I think you met once while trying to figure out where I went in Alaska," Mulder replied knowingly, his face grim. "Because I asked him for information on Chester Banton, if his life was in danger." He glanced up at her, his eyes regretful. "I told him where Banton was. The nurse on call that night was able to describe him."

The ramification of what Mulder was telling her slammed in somewhere in the front of her brain. "Oh, Mulder," she breathed as she reached up for the bridge of her nose. "Do you think your informant took Banton then?"

"Not before Banton accidentally killed Kelly Ryan," Mulder muttered bitterly. "I didn't realize and I should have." 

Mulder stopped, clearly angry with himself and the situation. "If I had said nothing, she wouldn't have had to die."

It was true, if Mulder had not gone to his informant, then Banton wouldn't have escaped. "However, if I had forced Kelly to listen to what you had to say, to not dismiss it and to take it seriously, you wouldn't have felt the need to go to your informant in the first place." Scully felt the full weight of responsibility tug at her already sagging shoulders. "So, I guess we all share a little bit of blame here, me for not trusting you when you insisted that this case was much bigger than what the Richmond PD was assuming, and you for trusting too much in a man who deals in nothing but secrets and lies."

"What a pair of agents we make, huh?" Mulder gazed sadly at Kelly Ryan's grave. "And none of that brings her back to her family."

"No, it doesn't. Will we ever learn our lessons on these cases, you think? Will it always be some shadowy figure hiding somewhere, jumping out of the darkness to foil us, or ruin us, or destroy us or someone else, someone innocent?" Was this to always be the tenor of their work on the X-files, never knowing who was friend and who was foe?

"Perhaps," Mulder replied thoughtfully. "As long as there is something to hide, Scully, there will always be people who will try their damnedest to keep it hidden."

"At what cost," she wondered mournfully as she turned for Kelly Ryan's empty gravestone towards their waiting car.


	111. Chicken Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder reveals what creeps him out.

"Why in the world are we taking a case from the Food and Drug Administration?" Scully frowned down at the file in Mulder's hand, glancing dubiously at the picture of a rather bland, boring looking man.

"George Kearns, food inspector, went missing several weeks ago and the FDA is a bit worried one of their own might have met a nefarious end." Mulder held the picture out for her to study.

"A food inspector, meeting a nefarious end? This is a man who makes sure people don't play field hockey with our hamburgers, Mulder, hardly a man who poses a threat to national security."

"True, but what if you were a restaurant or company with something to hide? Do you know how dangerous it is to be a good food inspector in LA?"

"This is Arkansas, hardly a taco truck in Los Angeles." Scully sniffed.

"Still, if a food processing plant was up to something shady and didn't want to get shut down..." 

Mulder shrugged his shoulders meaningfully. Scully, somehow, wasn't buying.

"I don't know, Scully, the man's vanished." Mulder continued, looking over the file in his hand. "He hasn't been seen or heard from in ten weeks."

"Come on, Mulder. Don't you see what they're doing? They're wasting our time." It made perfect sense to Scully. They had been through this song and dance before just weeks ago. "They're sending us on some kind of a wild goose chase!"

"Chicken chase," Mulder corrected happily. "George Kearns was a federal poultry inspector assigned to Dudley, Arkansas, home of … Chaco Chicken."

"I'm not questioning the case's legitimacy, just their motives in assigning it to us." Honestly, it was a simple case of a missing person, something any newbie could take in a minute, and they were assigning it to the X-files as a case of busy work. Normally she would be the one trying to convince Mulder of the necessity of taking this case, trying to quell him as he threw yet another embarrassing temper tantrum about how the FBI was trying to give him shit work to do. Now he seemed almost thrilled for it. What was going on? "I mean, doesn't it bother you at all that they're undermining your work?"

"They may 'think' they are," Mulder acknowledged. "But on the night George Kearns disappeared a woman on I-10 saw a strange fire in an adjacent field."

"Yes, I read that report," Scully admitted dryly. "She claims that she saw some kind of a foxfire spirit. I'm surprised she didn't call Oprah as soon as she got off the phone with the police."

Her skepticism didn't deter her partner. "Folktales dating back to the 19th century from the Ozarks describe people being taken away by fireballs. It's supposed to be the spirits of massacred Indians."

The type of tales that one would tell their nine-year-old on their first camp out. "Those are only legends, Mulder." Perhaps, much like a nine-year-old, he would believe these stories.

"Well, most legends don't leave behind 12-foot burn marks." He passed her a photo from a large field, a perfectly round patch of blackened earth. "That photo was taken by state police in the field where the woman claims to have seen foxfire."

Foxfire-as in the glowing caused by bio luminescent mushrooms? Scully highly doubted this was what Mulder was referring to. "This could have been made by anything! A bonfire!"

"I thought so, too, until I remembered this." He rose, crossing to the television in the room and popping in a video he had sitting on top. "It's a documentary I saw when I was in college about an insane asylum. Gave me nightmares."

"I didn't think anything gave you nightmares," she teased as he picked up his remote. At least nothing at Oxford, save for perhaps Phoebe Green, she mused dryly.

"I was young." He shivered slightly as he began the tape. Scully watched the grainy, black and white film, clearly old, of a mental health patient in a hospital gown, raving about fire demons and spirits trying to take him away. He laughed maniacally as he discussed running away from these so called demons, muttering about "That's no way to get to heaven" over and over and over, rocking back and forth as he murmured softly to himself.

"His name was Creighton Jones. He pulled off the road on May 17, 1961 to take a nap. They found him three days later so deranged by what he'd encountered that he had to be committed. The state police found his car on I-10 right in the middle of Dudley, Arkansas, home of Chaco Chicken."

Scully found her skin crawling as she turned from the still image of the man with haunted frightened eyes to the picture of the burned fields Mulder had showed her. He returned to his desk, picking up the file. She could see why this video gave her nightmares. The image still on the screen bothered her, even as she turned her back to it.

"There's something going on out there in these fields, Scully, something I think that took George Kearns, and I think it has something to do with that large bonfire, and with the demons that Creighton Jones swore he saw that night forty years ago."

Swallowing hard, she forced herself to ignore the image that still stared into her back as she rounded on Mulder. "We don't know what happened to the guy. He could have just decided he hated his job, was tired of his wife, and skipped down. He may turn up in Vegas in a week with a blonde prostitute on his arm."

"Or he maybe have been taken by foxfire." Mulder grinned. "Which, given the odds, I may take over a hooker in Vegas any day of the week."

"Is there one time ever, Mulder, you just go with the most obvious answer and go with it," she sighed wearily.

"The most obvious answers don't always resolve every question," he replied glibly. "Beside, I'm in the mood for chicken. Aren't you?"


	112. Affairs of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully contemplate relationships and how bad they are at them.

Doris Kearns seems about as matter-of-fact about her husband's disappearance as everyone else in the town was. She was convinced that he had left her for other women and a good time. That seemed to be the consensus around Dudley, Arkansas, despite the report that Kearns was preparing to file with the FDA. As far as they were concerned, George Kearns had left town with some pretty girl and good riddance to him. Except, that didn't sit well with Mulder. Scully could tell by looking at the thoughtful way he gnawed on his bottom lip as they crossed the lush, spring green lawn outside of the Kearns. To be honest, it didn't sit well with Scully either. She turned to frown thoughtfully at the Kearns front porch, watching as Doris eyed them curiously out of her from window.

"Tell me, Scully, if you had a husband who kept stepping out on you, would you be so lackadaisical about his disappearance?" Mulder had rounded their car and was leaning against it, arms crossed on the top of the vehicle.

"I don't know. I don't think I'd put up with it for as long as she obviously did," Scully turned back to him, shrugging. "But people put up with betrayal in different ways. Obviously, George Kearns carrying on with different women was nothing new to his wife."

"Convenient how he decided he was going to throw everything away the day after he was going to file a report with the government on Chaco Chicken." Mulder shrugged, pushing off the car and opening the door. "I have to say, everyone seems to be far to eager to buy the idea that after years of fooling around on his wife without caring one way or the other if everyone knew, including her, he would pick that time of all times to finally leave for good." He stepped inside the car as Scully reached for her door, sliding in beside him in the passengers seat.

"I won't deny the timing is suspicious, Mulder, as are the circumstances, which I think is part of why the FDA came to the FBI for help. But I don't know if this connects back to your foxfire."

"Maybe, maybe not." Mulder didn't sound terribly upset either way. It was still an interesting case to him, a question that had to be solved and a puzzle that had to be worked out. "It does bother me though that Kearns could get away with treating his wife like that for so long and it would never even occur to her to do anything about it."

"People do get bored and blasé in their marriages. I suppose if you are comfortable where you are, turning a blind eye to a spouses indiscretions doesn't feel like such a bad thing."

"You're parents were married happily for over thirty years, Scully. Do you think your mother would have just turned a blind eye to your father like that?"

Mulder's statement gave her pause. In all truth, Scully hadn't really thought about her parents' marriage the same way she considered marriage in general. Somehow her parents and their relationship seemed far too sacrosanct for that, something beyond the other marriages out there, like the Kearns. "Well, my mother didn't exactly have an easy time of it with Dad, either, being a Navy wife, months while he was out at sea and she was home alone with four screaming kids. Granted, Dad called whenever he could, most every night when he was a captain, but in a way you could say he was an absent father."

"But he wasn't absent by choice, he was absent by duty. Not even work-a-holic fathers have the excuse of Uncle Sam calling them out to sea." Mulder grimaced slightly. "My father was the work-a-holic kind. I don't think he ever cheated on Mom that I know of. But he was always down in DC for work, while he left Mom and us kids in Massachusetts. I can't say that either of them was completely thrilled with this arrangement. I don't think Mom always was."

"So why did she stay, do you think?" Scully couldn't help but be curious about the circumstances that shaped the man Fox Mulder had become, especially given her meeting with Bill Mulder. But she also knew this was some of the more painful aspects of Mulder's personal life, and something rarely, if ever, discussed.

Mulder looked thoughtful for several long moments, as if considering. "I think in her own way, Mom has always loved Dad. I just don't think she could always love the work Dad did and the way it took him away from us. It was even worse after Samantha disappeared. I think she could overlook it before that, at least some of the time. But after that…" 

He shrugged thoughtfully as he started the car and pulled away from the Kearns' house. "I think Mom could live in indifference up till that point and when she needed him most, he failed her."

The regret from Bill Mulder over the way he failed his wife and children still reverberated clearly in Scully's mind. It was sad, she thought, that he allowed that regret to define him so, especially given family he gave up because of it. "I think about our parents, all the separation, and how it defined their marriages. For my parents, I think it made them stronger, made those times we were together all the sweeter. It's sad that it didn't do the same for yours."

"Well that's one thing with us Mulders and marriage, I suppose. We are notoriously bad at it." 

It was such an odd statement from him that it gave Scully pause. "You don't ever see yourself as being good at marriage?" 

She knew that Mulder had always said he never saw himself settling down with a family and children, but she had always assumed that he thought that because of his obsession, because of his quest. She had just assumed that he, underneath it all, would of course consider settling down with the right woman, if the opportunity presented itself, just that he doubted it ever would.

"Let's just say in the relationships I've been in, I haven't exactly been good marriage material." Mulder evaded skillfully as the Chaco Chicken plan came into sight in the distance. "It seems that women find me,...what was it? Self-absorbed, indifferent, and unfeeling of the needs of others."

"Well, they do have you there," Scully teased, grinning at his mock-affronted smirk. "But you are a man with an infinite capacity to love and care for people and will move heaven and earth for those that you considered friend. I would think that any woman lucky enough to win your heart would see that in you, despite all the other faults. After all, no one is perfect. They're just perfect for us."

"Yeah." Mulder sighed by way of response. It was clear that whatever her thoughts on the matter, his past affairs of the heart tainted whatever already shaky view of himself he had. What a mess he was, poor man, chasing ghosts and aliens, who doesn't even see himself worthy of anyone or anything. After the childhood he had, the rejection of his father, the self-blame he bore, she could only imagine what damage a bad relationship or two did to him. No wonder he played the knight-in-shining-armor as often as he did. Perhaps he thought that if he saved enough maidens and honest peasants he could find some sort of self-redemption.

If only life really worked that way.


	113. Legacy, What Is A Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder contemplates the legacies we leave behind.

Mr. Chaco's home was a dream of Southern elegance, with its wide, lush green lawn and its stately gentleman, sadly holding court there. Scully watched the elderly man as he entered into his home, his shoulder's bent, his sorrowful words seeming to drag down the man into his own well of sorrows.

"You have to feel for a man like that." Mulder sighed as he turned to her. "He's spent his entire adult life building up this town and now it all seems to be falling apart because of one man."

"A man's whose disappearance we are here to investigate," Scully pointed out, though she could understand something of the man's sadness. "It can't be easy to watch your company threatened and then add to it the loss of your granddaughter. From the looks of it, Paula was all of the family Chaco had left. They said he was her guardian since she was a teenager."

"He's all alone now." Mulder blinked in the mid-day sun as he turned from the chicken pen where Chaco had been feeding his prized hens. "Losing all the family you had left in the world, it's enough for any man to start questioning his legacy, what he's left behind. I suppose for Chaco, George Kearns only stood out as a man poised to tarnish everything he spent a lifetime building up."

"So do you think he had him killed?" They made their way back into the expansive house, where the house maid greeted them and quietly showed them to the door. Mulder held his response till they were back outside, waiting till the maid closed the front door firmly behind them, glancing towards the windows of the front.

"I don't think Chaco had him killed, but I think Chaco suspects that Kearns was killed and that's what is bothering him. A scandal like that is almost worse than minor FDA violations. It would turn the full light of the Food and Drug Administration on Chaco Chicken, causing people to ask some uncomfortable questions that Chaco and his company would have to answer. I think that is why he's offering full disclosure on Paula's death. If you can link Paula's death to George Kearns, then people will say that he perhaps died of a neurological disorder and won't question it further."

"Well, we can't know that without a body to look at," Scully reminded him as she moved towards their rental car.

"No, but the assumption will be made, and Chaco is spared a scandal." Mulder followed behind slowly, his eyes roving over the large estate thoughtfully. "If you were ever someone like Chaco, someone who left behind a life's work, what would you do if someone took it all away from you?"

This gave Scully pause as she watched her partner for long moments. Was Mulder referring to Chaco or himself? In many ways his work on the X-files was little different than what Chaco had built up in the town of Dudley, Arkansas. It was his entire life, everything he devoted himself to, day in and day out. He gave up all creature comforts for this pursuit of his, which in many ways was so much more than just the search for his missing sister. It was the search for truth, for the ultimate truth, the explanations for the unexplained that littered the X-files. It was his legacy, in a way, one that he carefully protected and looked after. But it was, unfortunately, Mulder's legacy alone. Should anything happen to him, should he lose his job, or be relocated, or heaven forbid, killed in the line of duty, who would be there to continue on his work? Could she? Scully doubted that she alone could do it. She lacked his insight and his passion, the driving need to know that pushed Mulder. If he were to ever be taken from the X-files, it was quite possible that it would fall again into obscurity, a room full of cases that no one could explain, or no one cared enough to explain. What would happen to Mulder's lifetime of work should he ever be lost?

"You know, when I get old and retire, maybe I should have a place like this," Mulder finally quipped, as if sensing her dark thoughts and wishing to alleviate them. "Think he gets cable here?"

Scully smiled dryly. "Enough to probably watch all of the baseball, football, and basketball your head could stand."

"It's a little too ostentatious for me." He meandered to the car, pulling the keys from his pocket. "I think a little place, quiet, with just me, maybe a dog."

"You'd have a dog?" She was amused by the idea of Mulder taking care of anything, especially another living creature.

"Sure, something to chase away the kids playing loud music on my lawn."

Scully laughed, seriously hoping that Mulder got to live long enough to be that type of grumpy, old man.


	114. Losing Your Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully nearly loses your head.

Why was it that she was always the one who ended up being captured by crazies and nearly killed? Why couldn't Mulder be the one captured? For a hysterical moment Scully eyed the crowd of Dudley citizens, all blank faced and still as death as they watched the man in the strange mask raise his axe over the aged head of Walter Chaco, ignoring his warnings at it fell down, _thump_ , against his exposed neck. Scully instinctively slammed her eyes shut, though nothing could quite disguise the sound of blood pumping and pouring out of a headless neck, the fluid splattering on the ground at first, before trickling to silence as Chaco's body stopped its flailing and twitching.

When Scully's eyes did peek open again, Chaco was being removed from the harness attached to the stump in the field and the floor manager from the Chaco Chicken plant pointed towards her, demanding she be brought over. Rough hands reached and grabbed her slight figure, and no matter how she twisted and turned, it was to no avail as she felt herself drug along the ground, then slammed to her knees in front of the chopping block. She wanted to scream at them, remind them that she was a federal agent. But her mouth was taped shut, and all she could do was scream wordlessly in protest as they forced her head into the harness, and pinned it down roughly in the block.

She stared at the knees of the man in the mask, with his axe raised high overhead. Once again, she was facing a situation where she was going to die, only this time there really wasn't anything she could do to get out of it. Perhaps Mulder might arrive in at the last minute, guns blazing, and a part of her in those waning seconds vaguely hoped he did. After all, he seemed to always come in the knick of time before, but there was never before a town full of people standing around watching as she was being beheaded, waiting to consume her flesh because of some odd belief that by doing so, they would be able to have eternal life. Why couldn't they just eat communion wafers, like she did? She tensed her shoulders, waiting for the final blow, the one that would take her life, like some sort of Renaissance martyr, her head severed from her body and Mulder left to explain why it was his partner went missing in the line of duty. 

Scully squeezed her eyes shut as, suddenly, gunshots rang through the Arkansas spring night, and the crowd began to scream. She didn't need to ask where the gunshot came from, she knew. She could have melted down there in relief if she wasn't more afraid of the townspeople trampling her in their haste to flee from the scene of their mutual commitment and shame. In the distance people shouted, car engines began revving up, and tires began peeling down the road. She opened her eyes to see Mulder bent over her, his face in shadows as he worked to removed the harness from around her neck. Always in the knick of time, she sighed, as he helped her sit up. His expression was filled with fear and worry. 

"Are you alright?" He reached for the corner of tape that spread across her left cheek. All she could do was mumble as he gently pried the tape from her perspiration-slicked skin, careful not to pull so hard as to hurt her. The glue came off wetly across her lips, as she was able to breath freely at last.

"You all right," he asked again, his fingers brushing the hair out of her face gently, with concern. It was tempting to lean into those fingers, to give in to the terror and horror that still coated her throat and the tears that threatened to sting her eyes and spill out, unbidden from burning eyelids. But she only nodded her head, too stunned and overwhelmed to even comprehend what was going on and what had happened. She had, just seconds ago, been prepared to die, she could almost feel the sharp blade of that axe cutting into her skin. Instead the axe lay dormant, gleaming harmlessly in the light of the roaring bonfire, beside the man in the strange, tribal mask. His body lay motionless in the green grass, the mask askew on the man's unseen face.

Mulder rose and moved towards the man, and Scully shakily followed, her bruised knees wobbling under her as she stumbled behind her partner. Carefully he leaned over and removed wooden artifice from the man's face and paused as he looked down at the familiar features of Sheriff Arens.

"Looks as if the entire town was in on it." He grimaced as Scully stared down at her would-be executioner, feeling ill as she did. He hadn't thought twice of nearly killing her, of killing all those other people whose bones they had pieced together. He had lied to their face about George Kearns and she had witnessed him killing the town's leader, Mr. Chaco.

Mr. Chaco? Scully whipped around, her eyes scanning the ground, looking for the body of the fallen, elderly gentleman, but found it no where near the stump where she had been locked, nor near the bonfire roaring in the night. In fact, short of the stain of dark, gleaming red in the glare of the fires spread on the grass, there was no sign of Chaco or his body, as if he hadn't had his head chopped off in front of her eyes...as if he hadn't died.

"Where's Chaco?" She spun around the field, but saw nothing. Even the townsfolk of Dudley were gone now, their cars long scrambled into the distance. All was quiet in the fields of Dudley, eerily so, as Mulder watched her with wary concern.

"Chaco was here! They killed him!" She gasped, pointing to the slick of blood begriming the ground. "He was here. He tried to stop them. He told them they had forgotten why it was they did this, and then they killed him." She tried to hold down the bile that threatened to rise up her throat and burn her lips. "They chopped his head off, I saw it…I heard it." She stared wide-eyed at Mulder, willing him to believe her.

Whether he believe her or not was hard to say. He looked in the distance, to where the cars had been parked along the road. "I have a feeling the good people of Dudley took the evidence with them."

Scully's eyes followed Mulder's to the now empty road. There was no evidence now of the people who had gathered there just moments ago, threatening to kill her, save for the bonfire, the dead body, and the trampled grass all around them. All she had of Chaco's death was the blood still spilled on the ground. If she didn't know better, if she hadn't seen it, she'd almost believe that it hadn't happened.

But she knew better…and she suspected so did Mulder.

"Let's get you out of here," Mulder's murmured, reaching for her wrists, undoing the bonds that held them together with deft fingers. "You know, one of these days you'll have to stop getting yourself into this predicaments." He smiled teasingly, though she could see the shadow of fear and doubt that Mulder never seemed to shake, the legacy of Duane Barry between them.

"It's not like I plan on being carried off and captured every time I turn around," Scully grumbled with more bluster than her still reeling mind felt. "We were out here on a simple case of a missing FDA inspector and next thing I know we have cannibals who are wanting to take my head." Why had her tone become so brittle and shrill? Her hands shook violently as Mulder finally released them. She pulled them close to her, rubbing the chaffed skin.

"I'm starting to have nightmares of being tied up," she mumbled as Mulder's large hands reached for one abraded wrist, holding it easily between his long fingers.

"If I thought it would do me any good trying to keep you from the bad guys of the world, Dana, you know I would." Mulder murmured, brushing the strands of hair off her still damp forehead. "Do you think I like having to beat up, threaten, and shoot people who are out there about to kill you?"

The absurdity of his statement made her snort suddenly with rueful laughter, the situations she had found herself in time and time again in the past year flashing in her mind in a mad montage of scenes. Really, would it always be like this, one or the other of them in some impossible situation where they were almost killed, with the other partner left to frantically try to track them down and rescue them? Would each of them have to go through those horrible moments of fear for the others safety again and again and again?

Mulder's fingers around her wrist were soft and comforting, but the smile breaking on his face promised a wise crack to come, something to disturb the hysteria still lingering on the edges of Scully's frayed nerves. "Well, at least we now know what makes those Chaco Chicken pot pies so tasty now."

"I'm never eating chicken again!" Scully moaned as she turned to look at the still raging fire. "In fact I might cut out eggs too. Give me a big steak, or a pork chop, or maybe I'll go vegan."

"Don't say such blasphemous things," Mulder chided, letting go of her arm, but instead moving his fingers to their ever-present place on her back, a physical reminder that he was there. "Though I might have to avoid any Chaco Chicken products for a while." He grimaced in disgust as he watched the dancing flames.

"What do you think they did with Chaco?" Scully stared into the bright glow and heat of the bonfire in the spring air.

"I think either they are going to carry on the ritual with it later or they will dispose of the body, probably in the plant."

The plant! Scully felt herself grow green with the thought, just as another darker, more panicked reaction hit. "If Chaco was involved with the cannibalism, Mulder, with George Kearns' murder, than he was infected just like the rest were. His body could infect every chicken that eats the feed they send through that plant, and that can then spread to infect others."

"Then we'll make a call to the FDA first thing in the morning, they can send someone over from Little Rock to shut down the plant for further investigation. I think between our findings and Kearns report they have enough information to close down production for the moment till they can test all of the chickens that Chaco has been processing."

All of this chaos, all because of one man who was sick to begin with, and the threat he posed to a venerable gentlemen's empire. "Chaco tried to stop them, you know." Scully sighed as she looked up at Mulder. "I think he knew this had all gone too far. Whatever his beliefs, whatever he thought he was introducing to this town, I think he saw it was tearing everything down. He wanted to bring back the sanity, and they killed him for it."

"Perhaps, Chaco's legacy was getting bigger than himself and once that started to happen, he couldn't control it anymore. It grew to the point where it consumed him, literally." Mulder hadn't meant the pun, but it still made Scully grimace all the same.

"So much for men and their passions," Scully theorized aloud. "Everything they spend a lifetime building ends up swallowing them whole as their entire world crumbles around their ears." She glanced sideways at Mulder, a pointed look she was sure he couldn't see. "Perhaps there is a lesson to be found in that, you know."

Mulder nodded slowly, pensively, as he continued to watch the roaring flames mournfully as they leapt up into the jet-black sky above.


	115. Sensitive Information

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully covers for Mulder with Skinner.

"There's been no report of Chaco's remains?" Skinner's gaze was curious as he glanced over the top rims of his lenses, Scully's report on the Dudley indecent in his hands. She shook her head in the negative, frustration clear in her frank gaze as she met his eyes.

"Samples of the blood taken from the scene in Dudley do match his medical records, along with his granddaughter, Paula. However the town of Dudley has been very secret about their behavior and his whereabouts, for obvious reasons. It's compounded by the twenty-seven known cases of Cruetfzeldt-Jacob disease we know of in Dudley. As many of those patients happen to be witnesses to the crime, the information we can gain from them is minimal."

Skinner nodded impassively, though his eyebrows creased faintly in mild disgust at the accusations being placed at the feet of the citizens of Dudley. "From what you gathered from the Navy, Walter Chaco picked up cannibalism in the South Pacific?"

"It's a theory, yes." Scully couldn't substantiate it, though she had called every anthropological expert on South Pacific culture she could find on the matter. "The problem is that the Jole are a very secretive tribe, and in the decades since World War II have denied any such allegations. Since many have modernized and left behind the old ways, few are willing to admit to any cannibalistic past. We can't tell if the stories about them are merely Western fabrication from the days when it was assumed all Polynesian tribes were cannibals or if they had a ritualistic practice of eating their dead that Chaco picked up, believing that he could have eternal life through consuming the life of others." Her tone remained distant, nearly academic, though the idea disgusted her. "Naval records do show Chaco was born in 1902. And I can attest, sir, that either he had amazing genes or a very good doctor, because Mr. Chaco hardly looked as old as his birth records indicate."

Skinner nodded but failed to comment as he reached for a pen in his desk drawer and flipped her report to the back, signing his name in a ranging scrawl. "I'll accept your report then, Agent Scully. I know the circumstances were…less than ideal." He grimaced as he watched her for a long moment. "I'm glad that Agent Mulder was able to prevent any undo harm from happening."

"As am I." She cleared her throat as he put his copy of the report in his own files, preparing for the usual dismissal that came at the end of such meetings. Instead he glanced at the seat beside her pointedly and she felt herself flush with mild embarrassment. Mulder had missed this meeting with Skinner over their case, again. She had made excuses of course, she always did. Last time he was in traffic, a plausible enough excuse if you lived in any metropolitan area in the US. But since the incident at the prison, Mulder had conspicuously ducked out of most of the meetings with their superior, all with varying degrees of apology and excuse. It was, Scully knew, her partner's vain attempt to avoiding dealing with the harsh words and implications of his last meeting with Skinner. Mulder had yet to forgive him for the Cumberland Prison case and the situations their boss had nearly put them in. Unfortunately for Skinner, Mulder had an eidetic memory to match his amazing capability to hold a grudge. Unfortunately for Mulder, Skinner was still very much their boss, and he couldn't avoid the man forever, not if he wanted to remained employed at the FBI.

"You partner couldn't come to your meeting this morning?" Skinner's eyes skated from the empty chair to her in mild recrimination, as if reminding her she was the responsible one of pair.

"Agent Mulder had to attend to some personal business this morning." If you could call meeting with the Lone Gunmen personal business. "He sent his apologies and felt that I would be fully capable of handling the report this morning."

"I'm pleased to see that Agent Mulder puts such faith in your abilities, Agent Scully, but I find it odd and perhaps a bit offensive that he has made himself unavailable for the last several meetings between us. As his supervisor, it's my responsibility to oversee his work on the X-files, something I find particularly difficult if I never see him." Skinner tone was dry as he leaned back in his office chair. "Have you spoken to him this morning on the nature of his business?"

His question struck Scully as oddly invasive, especially for Skinner who took such pains to not involve himself in the personal doings of Mulder on most occasions. "No, sir. I assume when Agent Mulder says he has 'personal' business it is just that…personal."

Whether her boss believed her or not was hard to say. He didn't have a reaction one way or the other, and weighed her answer carefully, before sitting up and nodding dismissively. "Thank you for your work on the Chaco case, Scully. I'll share your findings with the FDA and they will decide how best to proceed on their end. When you see your partner this mornings, please let him know I would like to see him in my office." He didn't look at her, but busied himself with another report lying on the top of his desk.

Scully exited as quietly and professionally as possible, with her casual nod to Kim and her familiar wending through the office to the elevators and the basement. Mulder hadn't even been in yet when she had left for Skinner's office promptly at 9 AM, and she rather hoped he had managed to make it to work since then. Really, she mused in mild irritation, this behavior was juvenile on his part. But then it was Mulder, a part of him would be forever trapped in the angry, childhood mentality of Fox. If he didn't want to deal with it, he tried his damnedest not to.

Unsurprisingly the office was open when she got downstairs and Mulder was sequestered behind his computer, frowning as he watched his monitor eagerly. She breathed a silent prayer that it wasn't details on a case involving anyone or anything that liked eating human flesh, in particular her own.

"Mulder," she began with a hint of chastisement in her tone. "Skinner's looking for you."

"Come in and lock the door." It was the type of conspiratorial comment she might have expected out of a junior high girl getting ready to confess her secret crush, but not out of her partner. She did as she was asked, but she demanded an explanation.

"Why? What's going on?"

"Are you familiar with the Ten Commandments, Scully?" His eyes danced with excitement and she could see that familiar glow of anticipation about him. Perhaps this was bigger than cannibals and mutants after all.

She snorted softly at him. Familiar with them? She'd wager she knew them better than Mulder did any day. "You want me to recite them?"

"No, just number four, the one about obeying the Sabbath, the part about where God made Heaven and Earth but didn't bother to tell anybody about his side projects." He motioned her to his screen, as gleeful as a child at Christmas. She moved to glance at the slowly opening file, wondering what in the world it could be to get Mulder this worked up. And even more so, where did he get it?

"What are you talking about," she breathed as she watched the file slowly download on the screen in front of her.

"The biggest lie of all," Mulder murmured reverently as on his screen the seal of the Department of Defense pixilated in front of their eyes.

Defense Department files? Just what had Mulder gotten his hands on? "What is this?" Along her spine nerves jangled in the way they used to when she and Melissa used to peek into their parents' bedroom while they were away, just to see what type of secret things they had hidden there.

"The Holy Grail, the original Defense Department files, hard evidence that the government has known about the existence of extraterrestrials for over fifty years." Mulder's fingers bounced nervously on the desk, his face flush and his eyes feverish as he looked up at her.

"Where did you get it?" Obviously not from the Defense Department, she would wager. Mulder had all manner of informants, some better than others. And she couldn't help but wonder who would pass on something this large to him so thoughtlessly and how reliable this information truly was.

"Your friendly neighborhood anarchist." He grinned as the screen flashed with long files filled with strings of letters, vaguely familiar to Scully. She would wager they were unfamiliar to Mulder, though, as he scanned through he documents quickly, his bright eyes turning stormy as the unfamiliar text rolled down the screen. "I don't believe this. This is just gibberish."

With a sudden burst of furious speed he threw himself up out of his chair, swatting at his pencil holder, knocking it over as writing implements flew out of the cup and rolled across his desk, clattering as they rolled to the floor. "Damn it! I'm so sick of this crap, BS and double talk. I can't believe this!"

Ignoring Mulder's temper tantrum, Scully continued to stare at the words on the screen, the long strings of consonants, punctuated here and there by vowels that ran up and down the page, some repeating over and over again, like names. ""Mulder, this may not be gibberish."

"It's a joke, Scully, a bad joke," Mulder petulantly insisted, stalking the area around his desk, hands at his waste, glaring as if looking for something to kick, hard.

"I think it's encrypted," Scully insisted, as something tugged at her brain, something familiar. "And I think I recognize it." It was something Ahab had taught her, long ago, a game they had played on one of their long, sticky, hot family trips in the station wagon when they had lived in San Diego. She remembered a camping trip to the Four Corners region in the Southwest, and her father teaching her and her siblings about Navajo Wind Talkers. "It looks like Navajo. It was used in World War II. My father told me it was the only code the Japanese couldn't break. I…I remember the long strings of consonants." It wasn't something she could read easily, but she could certainly find people who could.

"Well can you find out?" Hope sprang anew in Mulder's gaze, his mind whirling behind his bright eyes.

"Well only a handful of people can decipher it." And she would have to do some research to find someone who could. Obviously not through the Department of Defense, she sighed ruefully. But perhaps one of the professors she had spoken to recently on the Chaco case could point her in the direction of a professor of Native American anthropology.

Mulder's flushed face set in determination, his jaw set as she could see the leaping in his mind. "Well find them," he snapped, uncharacteristically short as he made for the door, presumably to Skinner's office for what Scully could only assume would be a short and perfunctory meeting on Mulder's lack of appearance in their boss' office of late. He looked less than thrilled about it.

In fact, he looked less than well. What she had taken for enthusiasm now showed signs of illness and fatigue to Scully, as his bright eyes and flushed face only just masked the weariness. Odd, she thought. Mulder hadn't been sick a day since they had worked together, save for the strange, alien virus he had contracted, and of course the accidents he had in the line of duty. Right now he didn't look at all well.

"Mulder," she called before he could get out of the door. "Are you okay?"

He paused to spin around, frowning at her in confusion, as if surprised she would even think to wonder. "Yeah, just haven't been sleeping." He shrugged nonchalantly. It was a common enough malady for Mulder that it didn't surprise Scully, but he usually didn't look the way he did now.

Still, Mulder knew his insomnia best, better than she did, and if he felt he was fine, she would leave it for the time being. She frowned again at the computer screen with its jumble of letters. Wordlessly she picked up the phone beside Mulder's computer and dialed the now familiar number to Georgetown University's School of Anthropology. Perhaps they might not have anyone on staff, but they certainly could point her, discreetly, into the right direction. As she waited on hold, she glanced once more at the document on Mulder's monitor, her stomach curdling ever so slightly as she thought of just what was so important that the government needed to encrypt it with a code hardly anyone spoke anymore. For a fleeting moment the Erlenmeyer flask flashed into her mind. Could this really contain all the secrets regarding the virus that had infected both herself and Mulder? Perhaps? The bigger question to her right at the moment was how did Mulder get a hold of such a wealth of information, and where did he plan on keeping this. Scully could lay odds that if someone took this, someone at the Defense Department would be looking for it. And she doubted they would be all that gentle about getting it back.


	116. Only For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully contemplates the lengths she will go for Mulder's quest.

Dismissal without chance of reinstatement.

The words flashed in stark black and white in Scully's mind. It would be the end of her career in the FBI, the end of everything she had worked for during the last four years. Her reputation as an investigator ruined. She may be able to find work as a pathologist, yet her dismissal from the FBI would always be questioned in the future. Everything she had fought for, everything she had wanted for her life after medical school would be thrown away if she kept back anything, any possible thing from the OPR disciplinary board, anything about their work; about Mulder, about her opinion on either, and her knowledge on the file she knew that Mulder had in his possession. She knew that somehow OPR knew about this and she knew it was going to come up, the question on how they had possession of a classified, Department of Defense file. What would she say to them about seeing it? What would she say to them about Mulder having it?

Mulder attacked their boss in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowded hallway, in front of God and everybody. What was he thinking? Perhaps in the privacy of Skinner's office, just the two of them, or outside of work, where no one could have seen, Skinner would have let it slide. But in front of the entire Bureau? What had possessed him? His career at the Bureau could very well be over. Granted, what Skinner had done to them at the Cumberland Correctional Facility was shitty, but nothing worthy of Mulder completely losing his temper on their boss in such a public and explosive manner. All their work, all that they had been through in the last year, the X-files being closed, continuing their work even as they were separated. Her abduction, his illness, nearly being entrapped by the events surrounding Pinck Pharmaceuticals, and it was all going to be thrown away by one careless swing by Mulder. Why had he done it? What had possessed him? What was she to do now? Everything in her life now hung on a thread, her reputation, her career, and the answers for what had happened to her all those months ago. Could she risk all of that for one of Mulder's many temper tantrums? Should she risk so much for a man who so frequently threw caution to the wind for little or no reason. Could she put it all on the line for him again, for something as big as this?

One night a year ago she said she could. The two of them in his car, sitting in a quiet neighborhood in Baltimore, when she insisted on sitting up on a stake out she knew was illegal. She said she wouldn't put herself on the line for anyone else. And she had meant it then. She had meant it again and again and again, through their separation and reunion, through trips to Puerto Rico and Alaska. They had cemented a friendship, a partnership over root beer and buckets of chicken, but in each of those situations she had followed Mulder because of the rightness of what he believed, because in the end no matter how much he was breaking the rules or making an idiot of himself, he was acting out of the basic instinct of the truth and the need to understand what was going on. This time, he had crossed a line that she was unsure she could follow him on.

_I wouldn't put my neck on the line for anyone else…_

"Dana!"

Scully paused in thought, stopping dead in the hallway, confused for the briefest of moments by the sound of her own first name being called across the halls of the Bureau. Blinking, she spun about, looking for the voice, her gaze falling on Tom Colton's smiling, jovial face. He was the last person she needed or wanted to see today of all days. He sauntered to her. He had grown a closely cropped beard since last she saw him. She wondered by the jovial nature of his greeting if he remembered that meeting, how she had told him to go to hell and he had promised to ruin her if she so much as threatened his career.

Colton must have had a short and forgiving memory. "Dana, how have you been?" He leaned over to brush a perfunctory, bewhiskered kiss along one high cheekbone.

"Tom," she muttered warily, glancing about them by habit to see whom, if anyone was watching. Was this all a performance for someone's benefit? She couldn't be sure with Colton, there was always something involved in these sorts of things, some plan, some angle. "How are…things?" What was she supposed to say to this man, after everything he had done and everything that was said?

"Not bad, actually. Doing well over in Baltimore." She knew he would have to get that dig in somewhere. "You still in the basement with old Spooky…I mean, with Mulder?" She didn't miss the malicious hint to his laughter nor the dismissive look he gave as he said it. Pity Mulder had already gotten them in trouble for punching Skinner in public. She was sorely tempted to punch someone else.

"Yes, I'm still assigned to the X-files with Agent Mulder," she responded so coldly, she was surprised frost didn't form on the walls around them. "As I have been for the last two years." 

Where the hell else did he think she would be?

Colton didn't miss a beat, though, shrugging as if he hadn't just insulted her partner. "I was just wondering, you know, because I've heard things over in Baltimore." This time his laughter was replaced with at least a semblance of concern. "I heard about your abduction. It was all over the Bureau of course. We were all on the look out. I'm glad that you eventually got home."

He sounded so sincere, Scully was half tempted to melt a little towards him, but she knew Colton too well. "Really? I must have missed your well wishes card. Perhaps it got lost in the mail?"

He reddened slightly at her reproach. "Listen, I was as surprised as anyone you went back to the X-files after that. I mean, to put yourself out there like that, to risk your life with…well…" 

He shrugged suggestively, as wordless gesture that Scully understood perfectly well, but in her temper was more than willing to have him iterate anyway. She wanted to see how far Colton could actually swallow his own, God damn foot.

"No, enlighten me." Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him.

"Dana, everyone says it. Mulder's a live wire. He's bound to get himself killed one day and you with him." Colton's concern almost sounded genuine enough…almost. "You heard what he did to Skinner yesterday, right in front of his office?"

Yes, Scully found herself closing her eyes as she counted softly to herself. She had heard about it, she heard all about it. "Mulder has never put me in danger, Colton, no more than any other case, or for that matter any other agent ever has." She pointed that barb, reminding him that Eugene Tooms had nearly killed her thanks to Colton's negligence. "And while I have at various points been put in danger, it is nothing that is unexpected in our line of work as federal law enforcement." Well, if you called dangerous psychotics, mutants, and cannibals par for the course in the FBI, nothing she had ever done was any more dangerous. "After all, agents chase bad guys of all shapes and sizes, from terrorists to the Mafia and I'm as likely to get shot and killed by one of them as I am working with Mulder."

And yet reasoning seemed to have no effect on Colton whatsoever. His worried concern turned into a patronizing smile almost instantly. He shook his head, reaching an arm out to wrap uncomfortably about her shoulders, as he would have when they were still friends. Something they hadn't been in a very, very long time.

"Dana, look, I know we didn't part on the best of terms last time, I understand that." Perhaps the understatement of the year she though, but remained silent as he continued. "I acted badly. I should have given Tooms more consideration than I did, and you know what, I'll grant that Mulder was a damn good profiler at one time, scary good. But his time has passed. If his stunts up till now hadn't gotten him busted, his episode yesterday surely will. Now, I know you've been through a lot working with him and I know you're a stickler for duty and loyalty and all that, but you've done your duty. You've stuck it out. You have done all your assignment asked of you and more. When you got stuck on this gig years ago, the two of us, remember, we laughed about it and we couldn't figure out for the life of us why it was they stuck you with Spooky Mulder." He laughed in vague reminiscence.

Scully remembered, too. Colton was in DC the day she got her assignment to work with Mulder and they had met for drinks afterwards. Neither of them could understand why it was she had been assigned to work with the X-files. He had warned her she had been sent in for one of two reasons; to completely debunk Mulder's work or to cause him to become so overly dependent on her he would be easily distracted from it. Either way, Colton had warned her it was a bad career move, one that would put her in a position of easily destroying a man and his work, something that might earn her points in the Bureau, but might have other repercussions for her along the way, especially to those who would question her trustworthiness after tearing down the person of Fox Mulder, no matter how distasteful he was to some. Tom Colton was many things, a louse, a worm, and a backstabber, but God damn if he wasn't fucking prophetic as well. 

Dread settled in her stomach, icy cold as she realized just what her position in all of this was. She could do what was right by the Bureau and her career and stand on the straight and narrow here. Debunk Mulder and his work, tell the truth about the document and Mulder's mindset, and save her job and ruin his, or stand by the man who had stood true for her in the weeks of her disappearance, not give in to the authority that was threatening her, and risk losing it all for the pride and passion of one man. The man whose blind faith and overwhelming belief convinced her family she would return one day when all others had given up. The man whose keen intellect and amazing ability to understand the intricacies of the human mind had saved her from the brink of destruction countless times over. The man who against all odds struggled to find the truth about a conspiracy that she now knew about and shared knowledge of, a conspiracy that had nearly taken both of their lives, that sought to hide the knowledge of a virus whose origin she hardly understood but desperately wanted to learn more about. All of that she could so easily tear down with one little word, one little push to OPR tomorrow.

If Colton were in her shoes, he would do it. He would step all over Fox Mulder in a heartbeat. And yet she wasn't Tom Colton. And he didn't know the things she knew about now. He hadn't seen the things she had seen. And no matter what, she would always have twice the integrity, intelligence, and grace he had. Because for Scully it was never about how far she climbed up the ladder, but whether or not she was doing the right thing, making a difference for someone, even if that someone was Mulder.

"Dana, you know, I'm still here if you need," Colton's smile was silky smooth and inviting. "I know things didn't work out well before between us, we both acted hastily, angrily. But I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. We could use each other. I could use a good person like you in my team in Baltimore, a person who's been there in the trenches, not like these wet-behind the ears kids they keep sending us from Quantico. And you, you could use someone who believes in you, who thinks you could do something with yourself outside of the basement." He nodded knowingly, eyes expectant. She knew he thought she would leap at the chance after everything Mulder had done the last few days. Any other sane person might have said yes.

She smiled sweetly at him, the sort of smile she might have once shared with him when they had still be friends and dating at Quantico. "Colton, you really are the lowest, slimiest piece of shit to graduation from the Academy." She shrugged her small shoulders, knocking off his heavy, clinging arm. "My assignment is on the X-files. That hasn't changed. I'm not about to leave Mulder just because he had a bad day. The work I do there is real, and it is legitimate, no matter how you and your friends laugh at it. And no matter what you all and your sick mind think I may or may not being doing with Mulder." She knew she had hit the mark with that last statement, as a guilty glimmer flashed across Colton's suddenly stormy features.

"I was giving you a chance, Dana, as an old friend," he began.

"Save it, Colton. You can take your offer and your 'worries for an old friend' and shove both so far up your ass you'd need a colonoscopy to get it out. I want nothing from you but for you to go to hell and leave me and my work alone." Her voice rang angrily in the hallway, as several other agents all turned to stare at the scene she and Colton were making in front of everyone. Somehow, Scully couldn't bring herself to care. Let them all believe that the X-files had driven herself and Mulder crazy. At least she still had her dignity, something Colton had lost years ago, if he ever had it.

"Fine," Colton spat, his face bright red as he glanced between the curious onlookers, "Fine, be that way, Dana! Go play with Spooky, chasing aliens and ghosts, and see how far it gets you. Don't forget I was here, trying to be a friend to you. I can see how much friendship goes with you."

If it was the right friendship, she thought acidly, it went a long way. "I wasn't your friend, Colton, I was your brains. And I'm not going to do your thinking while you play your game of politics. I work on the X-files, with Mulder, whatever that means and whatever that takes." Even to hell, apparently. She spun angrily, eyes flashing as she stalked down the hallway away from Colton, who spluttered in mute anger as she went, ignoring the surprised and wondering glances shot her way from the onlookers around them.

As easy as that she had made her choice. Come hell or high water, her career be damned, she had sided with Mulder on this. Her hands clenched as she slammed the button for the elevator, her mind whirling at the implications of what this would mean for herself, for him, for the work should all of this go to hell. She knew what the OPR board would want. They wanted her to validate Mulder's work, for her to speak up on whether she believed, as a scientist, there was merit to it, or if Mulder's behavior yesterday spoke to an deep seated psychosis that no one had noticed till then. Did she believe Mulder was fit for this job? And perhaps, and she had to admit this to herself, there was a chance they knew about the document that Mulder had in his possession. Perhaps this entire OPR meeting was a ruse to discredit him before that document could be translated, before the information could be leaked out. 

And then where would they both be, both of them holding secrete, Defense Department information, classified information neither of them had clearance to look at? It was true, she would only put herself on he like for Mulder, only for him. But then again, he was perhaps the only person whose actions would ever put her in that position to begin with. But for good or for ill it was the choice she was willingly making. Heaven help her, she prayed as she stepped inside the elevator car, she could just be making a disastrous choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, there is smarmy Colton. I couldn't help but have him make a random appearance, just to show just how much Dana has changed from Season One to Season Two. He is


	117. Father and Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder calls with heartbreaking news.

Merchandise…vaccination…the alien virus. Scully's mind swirled sickeningly as she parked in front of Mulder's apartment, working out the pieces of what she knew like a logic puzzle. Mulder had received encrypted information stolen from the Department of Defense dealing with what he thought was proof of government knowledge of alien life. But what she was able to gather from the woman at the Office of the Navajo Nation in Washington was that it had less to do with alien life than it did about some sort of vaccination program. She wondered if it was a vaccination against the virus that she and Mulder had discovered Perhaps the strange microbe they kept stumbling over again and again was indeed a biological weapon that the government wanted to protect its people from. Could all of the secretive testing in Wisconsin and elsewhere, with the likes of small town doctors and Pinck Pharmaceuticals really just be the government's attempts to vaccinate the human populace against a virus that they had in their arsenal should it ever be unleashed on the world, or had someone else created it and the government was simply taking counter-measures in the event it was ever unleashed on US soil? So many questions and no new answers.

Her head ached with it as she slipped into the door of Mulder's apartment just behind someone coming home for the evening. Up the elevator she went, wondering where it was she could find a code talker from World War II left who could translate this information for her and tell her more about what those words meant, merchandise and vaccination, and what they had to do with the virus that she found. She could see no light under Mulder's door, and when she knocked she waited with no immediate answer. Scully frowned in worry as she repeated the knock. He hadn't been feeling well the last few days and had been asleep when she had stopped by earlier. With the alien virus so current on her mind, it occurred to her she had no idea what effect the virus might have on humans, and if it could reoccur and come back in a new form. Mulder never got sick from things as mundane as the cold or the flu. But his immune system had been compromised greatly by the double whammy of the alien virus and their stint on the sinking, Naval destroyer in the North Sea, it could be reacting to anything at the moment. Worried, she reached into her pocket for her keys, picking out Mulder's and quickly unlocking the door to let herself in.

"Mulder," she called softly, moving through the front area to his living room, expecting to see him knocked out on his couch again, as usual. Everything in his apartment looked exactly as she had left it hours ago, except for the lack of her partner's presence. Even the masking tape X was still on the glass above his desk. She paused, listening carefully for the restroom as she glanced in his kitchen, thinking perhaps he had just stepped into another room for the moment. Silence. Not a sign of Mulder anywhere in his sparse apartment.

Where the hell had he gone?

Curious to see if his car was even still there, she moved to the window in the semi-darkness. Just as she reached the window to peek down to the street below where Mulder's car normally sat, the glass of his window crack, as a stinging, liquid hot, burning sensation screamed across her forehead and scalp. Crying out, she fell to the ground, left hand to her now bleeding head as she frantically reached for her weapon with her right, the sound of squealing tires outside already informing her she was too late.

Scully's heart fluttered frantically in her chest as she dared to glance out just enough to see over the edge of the window frame, down into the quiet street below, now looking as normal as any Arlington street would at this time of night in June. No one had apparently noticed the shot from the street below, and certainly her would-be assassin hadn't stuck around to see if their aim was true. Both the assassin and Mulder's vehicles were gone. And she was bleeding all over Mulder's windowsill.

Someone had been waiting outside to take that shot, someone who had seen her come in and knew that Mulder wasn't here. They knew it was her standing at the window instead. A copper taste that had nothing to do with the blood trickling down her forehead filled her mouth as she moved swiftly to the restroom to assess the damage to her scalp. It was a set up, perhaps, someone's sick attempt at trying to frame Mulder with her murder, to show him as becoming increasingly violent, delusional, and temperamental. It would fit a pattern, she conceded as she flipped on the light in the restroom and reached for a washcloth from a pile of laundered towels on the back of Mulder's toilet. After all, first Mulder attacked Skinner, unprovoked, and then he had stormed out of work. Now if they could show him killing his partner in a fit of delusion, they would have all they would need to frame him for murder. How neat and effective. Her stomach lurched sickeningly as she ran cold water in the sink and studied the welling wound on her forehead. Obviously it wasn't deep or dangerous, but head wounds always bled horribly and she wiped away the blood quickly from the side of her face, dabbing at the torn skin just below her hair. She hissed slightly as the terry cloth rubbed at the exposed flesh.

They wanted to frame Mulder with her death. But he wasn't here. Where the hell was he? Her original question remained unanswered as she searched through Mulder's medicine cabinet, looking for anything that vaguely resembled medical first aid. The contents were, unsurprisingly, sparse. Frankly it was a small wonder Mulder liked having her around as his partner, he needed someone who had enough knowledge and supply to patch him up on a regular basis. She was able to find a bottle of peroxide, some clean gauze from one of Mulder's stints in the hospital, and some band-aids at least. That would have to do, she thought grimly, as she opened the peroxide and dampened the gauze with it, wincing as it bubbled and stung on her wound.

What was in that file that was enough to want to ruin Mulder so totally, so completely? Was it indeed the 'holy grail', as Mulder contended it was? Did it indeed hold the truths that Mulder was so anxiously looking for, the secret about alien life? Or did it have a darker, more nefarious story to tell, about government efforts to create biological weapons and vaccinations that they had tested on an unwitting and unsuspecting populous, without permission and without oversight. She couldn't be sure until she had a chance to speak to someone who would have the answers. The woman at the Navajo Nation office had given her a name, an Albert Holsteen. She would check him out when she could, but more importantly she had to find Mulder first.

Despite the stinging and ache in her forehead, Scully surmised that she would live for now. Rinsing out the now sodden washcloth, and putting away Mulder's scant first aid items, she cautiously moved back out into the living room, her hand on her weapon as she chanced a glance outside of Mulder's apartment again, hoping against hope that Mulder had just stepped out for a minute to run to the store or out for food, and was returning momentarily to his home. But there was no sign of his car and the street remained as quiet as it had just after she had nearly been killed. Where was he?

She scanned the top of Mulder's desk for any clue, but not even his notepad bore any sign of where he might have gone. His phone was off its charger, the receiver she found lying on his couch, nearly swallowed by the leathery cushions. She picked it up, checking through the recent calls feature on the small, LED screen. The only number that came up was for an unfamiliar area code that didn't ring any bells with Scully. Family, perhaps, maybe someone else who knew something about those papers. It was hard to tell.

She swore softly in the growing darkness. She had left Mulder, demanding to have some assurance from him that her going along with this wasn't going to hang them both, that he knew what he was doing with all of this, that this was worth every risk they were taking with it. And now she wasn't so sure anymore. No Mulder, no answers, and she had nearly been killed. What was in that document that could possibly be worth the risk that she was taking here?

Her cell phone chimed in the stillness of Mulder's apartment, causing her to jump on his couch, the leather creaking mockingly at her as she scrambled for the phone in her pocket. She nearly sighed with relief when she saw it was Mulder's number. "Hello?"

There was a brief, pregnant pause, a silence that rang harshly over the static air between their two phones. When Mulder did speak, his normally monotone voice was completely toneless and lost. "My father's dead, Scully."

Underneath the perfectly calm words, Scully could hear the heartbreak and loss, the stunning shock that rang through Mulder's unusually matter-of-fact words. Her head throbbed as her fingers grazed the wound on top of her head. Someone had tried to kill her tonight, ostensibly to frame Mulder. A lump formed in her throat as she began to realize just what was going on.

"Where are you," she asked harshly. Obviously with his father, but she had no idea whether Bill Mulder was at home or if he had come to DC to see his son.

"They shot him and he's dead." Mulder mumbled blankly, as if he hadn't even heard her question.

"Mulder, where are you," she reiterated patiently but firmly. God, she had no idea where he even was and he sounded as if he was already falling into all the classic symptoms of shock, shutting down on her. He couldn't stay there, not with his father's body. The first person they were going to look at for this was Mulder. "Just tell me where you are?"

"I'm on the Vineyard," he finally admitted dully.

Massachusetts? Damn, he would be hours driving back to her, and in his condition, too. Her eyes flew frantically towards the window, where a neat, clean bullet hole glimmered in the light from outside Mulder's window. "Mulder, who shot him?"

"I don't know," he admitted, almost tearfully.

Scully pressed her lips together, her mind racing as she tried to clear every possibility with Mulder before she decided on the next course of action. She didn't want to be a party on covering up a crime if there was a crime committed. But she had a sickening feeling that the only crime that had been committed wasn't by Mulder. "Mulder, were you arguing?"

"I didn't do it, Scully. He was trying to tell me something."

"Mulder, listen to me," she urged him.

"You got to believe me, Scully," he pleaded brokenly, begging her to understand. Her heart ached to hear it out of the man she trusted so much. How could he doubt that she would believe him?

"Mulder, I believe you. Just listen to me! You've got to get out of there. You have to leave immediately." This was a frame up, she knew it was, someone was trying to paint Mulder's behavior as irrational and quite possibly delusional. His father's death would be a convenient way of removing Mulder before the contents of that file could ever be translated.

"I can't leave the crime scene." Of all the times Mulder decided to follow FBI protocol, it had to be now? "It will look like I'm running, make me look guilty."

It didn't matter, she wanted to scream. They would make him look guilty. "Mulder, they're going to suspect you anyway/ You've got no ID on the shooter, your behavior has been irrational recently. Can't you see that everything is pointing directly at you?"

"He was shot with somebody else's weapon," he replied dully, almost naively, as if this would explain it all away, as if they couldn't fake that information if they so chose.

"Damn it Mulder, you're an FBI agent, you have access to weapons other than your own." Her nerves, already frayed now snapped all together as she tried desperately over the phone to convince her partner that he needed to leave, now, before the police got there, before anyone came to frame him for the crime.

"All right." He gave in without any further protest. "Meet me back at my apartment."

Scully eyed his window once again. She couldn't have him here, not if whoever was doing this already thought they had shot her here. Chances are, they had someone waiting to make the call when he came home. "No. No you can't come home. Someone shot through your window tonight, they almost killed me. They might be trying to kill you."

For whatever reason this broke through Mulder's shattered thoughts, his voice becoming sharp and clear for the first time in their conversation. "Almost killed you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Mulder, just leave, now. Get here as soon as you can. Meet me at home. I'll wait up for you."

"Okay." She could hear his footsteps rushing him out of his father's house. "It will be a few hours."

"Just get here, Mulder, and we'll think of what to do next, all right."

He clicked off. She stared at her phone sadly for the longest of moments, as it occurred to her just what an untenable situation she and her partner now sat in. He was being framed for the death of a father he was just now beginning to renew a relationship with. And she could very well be implicated as being an accomplice to that murder. She wasn't just looking now at her career with the FBI possibly being over, now she was looking at murder charges and jail time.

What was she doing?

She swallowed hard as she threw herself up and towards Mulder's fish tank. For now she had to be rational, stay calm, and try to help him through this, to find out who was setting him up before this spun madly out of their control. She sprinkled food into the fish tank, the golden-scaled creatures bobbing up to gulp at the nutrient flakes. She watched the absently for a long moment as she tried to formulate what in the world the two of them would do, how they would go about this. She had to prove that it wasn't Mulder's weapon used in the murder of his father. She had to prove that he didn't have access to any other weapon. And she had to do this while making sure that Mulder did come off as rational and not delusional.

How the hell was she supposed to do this?

"You guys have it so easy," she muttered to the floating fishes as the snapped to and fro, looking for the food she sprinkled on the surface. "No one is out there trying to kill you." She fingered the wound on her head briefly.

She needed to get home, where it was safe, and wait for Mulder.


	118. Covering Bases

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully handles a broken Mulder.

The clock on the microwave read 1:37, precisely thirty seconds later than when she last looked at it. She had paced by it repeatedly for the last hour-and-a-half as she made her circular trek from her large, bay window that overlooked the street, to her door, to the kitchen, and back again. She had worn a pattern on her rug, the same one her mother and sister had spent so much time cleaning after Duane Barry had attacked her. Truth be told, she hadn't been near the window since she had returned from her abduction. The fact that she willed herself towards it now spoke to the fear and worry she held for her partner at the moment, the terror that he may not make it to her apartment in one piece, either physically or emotionally.

How long did it take to get back from Martha's Vineyard anyway, she wondered? She had never been. She figured it couldn't be terribly far if Mulder had made it up there in the time since she had spoken to him earlier in the day. Could he drive in the state he was in? What if he had been pulled over? The very idea caused her heart to nearly stop. If there was an APB out on him already, there would be no way for her to get to him, no way for her to help him in this. Where was he?

She was considering making coffee while she was up pacing, as if she needed it at this moment, when she thought she heard a shuffling thump at her door. Hope sprang up as she reached the door, opening it on her bedraggled, ragged looking partner, leaning against the door frame. Save for Alaska, she didn't think she had ever seen Mulder look so bad or so broken.

"Fox," she murmured, not knowing what to say to him or how to make this better and God knows she wanted to. His tall body looking as if it could no longer support his own weight. She grabbed frantically for him as he threatened to tumble, her shoulder rushing to support him before he fell. "My God. Look at you! You're sick." His skin was feverish and slick, his eyes bright as he sagged heavily on her slight frame.

"I'm okay," he insisted blankly. Did he even know where he was?

"No, come on. I want you to lie down." She tried directing him to her bedroom, but her steering threatened to tumble him over. "Whoa, come on I want you to lie down, let me take your coat off." She began to work off the long sleeve of the jacket he wore. It was summertime in DC, sticky and humid outside. What did he need with a coat in the first place?

"You got to find them, Scully," Mulder muttered, half delirious, his hazel-green eyes fire bright as he shrugged out of the jacket she was taking.

She would find them, but not this minute. "Right now you have to lie down. Come here." She pushed him gently through the hallway to her room.

"We got to find out who killed my father," he repeated insistently as she pressed his shoulders down, forcing him on her bed, his eyes fluttering shut. He was going to collapse totally soon and she needed him to calm down, to rest, while she figured out what to do with him and his father's murder.

"Well, right now you need to rest, okay! Rest!" He tried to protest, but she stopped him with gentle fingers to his cheek. "It's okay. Okay?"

He nodded, quiescent at least. He seemed to understand that at least here he was safe. He relaxed into the pillows as began taking off his heavy, casual shoes, slipping each of them off and setting them across the room, by one of the chairs. She was going to have to get Mulder out of his clothes and comfortable, she realized. The last time she had managed this, he had been blessedly unconscious. This time she had no such luck. He watched her, glassy-eyed as she moved into her bathroom, and looking for the medical bag she kept there for the inevitable accidents Mulder seemed to always get into.

"I'm going to give you a sedative, Mulder, something to help you sleep." She eyed him sharply as she came back in the room, his eyelids, purpled with a lack of sleep, were closed, though she could tell from the shallow way he was breathing he was far from asleep.

"I can't sleep, Scully. I need to find the men who did this." He sounded so small, like a child. She bit her lip as she set her bag by the bed. How could anyone make a blow like this better?

"Not right now, Fox," she murmured. "Right now you are going to rest. Tomorrow I'll help you find them, all right?" Her fingers moved with fixed determination to his belt at his weight. Mulder's weary eyes flew open automatically, startled at the action, confused. Had he been in a better state of mind, Mulder would have cracked out a joke, made a lewd comment about schoolboy fantasies. But instead he tried, weakly, to swat her fingers away.

"You aren't getting up out of this bed, Mulder," she replied in what she hoped was her best, doctor's voice. "You are delirious and in shock. Now I'm going to take your clothes off, tuck you into bed, give you a sedative and you aren't going to move until I tell you to. Is that understood?"

Clearly, it was. Mulder's confusion turned to meek obsequiousness in an instant as he quietly let her take off his jeans and sat up enough for her to shimmy off his shirt. Left in only his boxers, she pulled down the sheets and blankets on her bed, pulling them over him and tucking him in. He didn't even say a word as she popped a thermometer in his mouth, a sure way to get him to complain loudly. When she checked the temperature reading on it she could see why. 102 Fahrenheit. Clearly there was a reason for her partner's delirium.

"What, no wisecracks about bedtimes stories?" She smiled tightly, disconcerted by Mulder's muteness during the entire process. Almost childlike he took her ministrations. Part of it could be everything he had suffered that evening already, but there was something else going on with him, something was very, very wrong. She rummaged in her bag for the drugs she could legally keep on hand, looking for the one she knew would quietly put Mulder to sleep, at least long enough for him to get the rest she suspected had been alluding him for days.

"I don't want to sleep," Mulder sighed petulantly.

"Well, you don't get much of a choice when I have the needle, do you?" She took an alcohol laden cotton swab and disinfected a patch of his skin, smoothly inserting the needle under the feverish surface. Mulder gasped, but didn't flinch away. "That should fix you up for now." 

Mulder nodded, eyes glancing from the tiny, pinprick wound she had inflicted on his arm, to her own worried gaze. There was such confusion, hurt, and sorrow lying there, all the things she could imagine he felt the night his sister was taken, so many years before. Except now it was his father, the man he had spent years not speaking to. He had just began his tentative relationship with his father just months ago, had just began to repair those bridges so long damaged, and now all those chances were gone.

"Get some rest," she whispered as she stroked his arm, gently placing it by his side on the bed. "I'll be in the living room. If you need anything, just call."

"Don't leave just yet," he breathed, panic in his voice, the sort of response one heard from a child just woken from a nightmare. "Stay for a bit, please?"

Scully wanted to say no. She wanted him to go to sleep. But there was such naked, raw emotion on his face, and a need to have someone, anyone tell him that it was all right. She remembered what Bill Mulder had said about that night so long ago, when his son had been hysterical, needing someone to comfort him, and Bill's regret that he had not.

"All right," she consented, pulling up the chair she had set his shoes by, sitting by her bed, holding the hand he held out to her between both of her own.

Mulder was quiet for long moments. She thought he had finally given in, was finally going to relax and go to sleep. Instead, he began to speak in a graveling monotone. She had to strain to understand what it was he was saying.

"Dad called me today to go see him. He said it was important, something he had to say." He paused, swallowing hard as he cleared his throat. "I have been trying to, you know, go up there, to really talk with him. He said it was important." Mulder's already glistening eyes now filmed over damply. "I was there only a few moments, Scully. He was trying to tell me something, something about a word I'd hear soon - merchandise." He closed his eyes, shaking his head, lost to his father's meaning.

Scully wasn't though. She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as she recalled the parts of the Defense Department document she had the woman at the Navajo offices look at. Merchandise had been one of the two words she had recognized, along with vaccine. How in the world would Bill Mulder know about that word, at least in the sort of context that he felt it was necessary to call his son up to Martha's Vineyard to speak to him about it? How would he know that Mulder even had this document, let alone what was in it? Scully thought about her conversation with the elder Mulder just months ago, of his regret, his sadness. He had said that Teena had left him because he had destroyed his children. She had focused on Fox, the way his father had neglected the son who ached for the loss of the sister he felt responsible for. But he had blamed himself for Samantha as well. He had said he knew about a threat to his daughter and he had done nothing.

Horrible, horrible thoughts began to coalesce in Scully's mind, ones she didn't want to give voice to, let alone think about. They were thoughts she could never speak of to Mulder, not out loud, certainly not at the moment, and most defiantly not till she had proof. Proof, she realized with sickening dread, she would need to find in that document that Mulder had acquired. The document was putting all of their lives on the line. Scully heartily wished now Mulder had never gotten his hands on it.

"He just stepped into the bathroom, just to get his medication," Mulder sighed sleepily, finally yawning as the sedative began to kick in. "I heard the shot, and I ran in. I didn't see the man, it was dark, and they were gone by the time I got to him. Dad, he asked me to forgive him." Mulder opened his rapidly closing eyes just enough to look up questioningly as Scully. "I don't know why."

Scully believed she did. And she hoped to God she was wrong. "Don't worry about that now Mulder. Just go to sleep."

His tired gaze didn't waver, only moving upwards to the bandage still taped to her forehead. Raising one finger, he reached for it, carefully. She didn't move, but watched as he let his hand fall back to his side.

"They tried to kill you, too, didn't they?" Mulder's exhaustion didn't hide his mournfulness.

"I'm fine, Mulder."

"It's because of that document, Scully, what it holds. They are trying to take everything I love from me and discredit me. We have to find what's in it."

"We will," she reassured him quietly. "Just go to sleep for now."

Mulder seemed to be giving up the ghost, finally. His eyelids fell finally, his features relaxed, and a soft, ever so gentle snore sounded as he sank more deeply into slumber. Carefully, she rose up out of the chair by his bed, moving it back to its accustomed place in her room and gathering up his scattered clothes. She hung the jeans over the chairs back, as well as his shirt. His holster banged against the dresser as she set the clothes down, his weapon peaking out from under the folds of his jeans. She had to run a weapons test on his gun, before anyone else got a hold of it, that much was clear to her. She would take it in the morning to ballistics at Quantico and have them run a weapons test on it, just so she personally could have the evidence that Mulder's weapon didn't kill his father. It would take a while, but it could prove crucial should the police in Chilmark want to pin the murder on Mulder. Then she had to reach out to this Albert Holsteen first thing, find out if he could indeed translate the information in that document for them, before it was too late. They both needed to know what it was in there that was worth killing Bill Mulder over, that was worth discrediting his son's career over. Only then could she possibly hope to get out of the shadow of whatever all of this was. As it stood, Scully realized sadly as she stepped out of her room and into the living room, this document had claimed the life of one man and was threatening to destroy their careers. Before it was over who and what else would go down with it and was it worth that price for the secrets it contained? Exhausted, Scully collapsed on her couch, unsure if she would even be able to sleep that night, not with all of the thoughts swirling in her mind, all of the questions. What was she going to tell Mulder when he woke about his father's death? What was she going to tell their boss?

How was she going to fix this?


	119. I Am The Police

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is forced to do the unthinkable to her partner.

Gunfire flashed across her eyes as she squinted against the play of explosive light against the darkness of the ballistics lab. Her ears were muffled against the percussive shock of sound coming from Mulder's gun being fired down the range, but she could still hear the shots ring out again and again, pinging one by one into the barrel of water below.

"I'll run a comparison as soon as they send me the bullet removed from the victim." The ballistics tech set down Mulder's weapon, nodding in assurance. She hadn't told him why it was she needed the test or whose weapon it was, not yet. For now she just needed to compare the bullet to the one that she knew was lodged in the plaster of Mulder's apartment wall, as well as the bullet she knew they would find in the body of Bill Mulder when the autopsy was complete. Then she could prove that neither attack was initiated by her partner and that would be one less hurdle they would have to clear when OPR began asking questions. And they would begin asking questions, soon. She had her meeting scheduled with them that very afternoon.

She needed answers. Damn it she needed more time.

"How long will it take to determine if they're a match?"

"They're both 9mm rounds." He held up one round for her to study briefly. "We'll run the specs compare the stray. We should know pretty much right away."

Good, she breathed, as in her pocket her phone began to ring. Without even looking at it she pulled it out, turning from the tech and clicking it on. "Scully."

"You took my gun." Mulder was seething on the other end of the line, as angry as she thought she had ever heard him. "You think I did it, don't you?" The accusation in his voice dripped out of the phone. She could only stare at the phone, stunned for the briefest of moments. Mulder had never spoken to her like this, had never reacted like this to her before. Just what was wrong with him? 

"I took your gun to run it through ballistics to try and clear you Mulder." Did he not understand this? Did he not get that without proof of his innocents it didn't matter what she believed, they would destroy him with this?

"Well, why didn't you ask me," he snapped harshly, hurt and betrayal ringing in her ears.

"You had a temperature of 102 last night, I didn't want to wake you." Her doctor's sensibilities kicking in almost without her knowing it. She knew he was sick, but he had to think rationally, he had to see reason.

"What were you afraid that I was going to shoot you too," he barked coldly, as if she hadn't been the one to invite him to her apartment, as if she hadn't given up her bed to him, taken care of him the night before.

"Mulder." Her voice was low as she glanced back at the oblivious ballistics tech. "I'm being called into Skinner's office this afternoon. They're going to want answers and I'd like some good ones to give them." If he wouldn't listen to her reason as a doctor, maybe he would as a fellow agent. His ass was on the line, he had to know that, whatever her beliefs were, he had to know that he couldn't just stand there protesting his innocents without some sort of proof of it.

"So you can clear your conscience and your name," he shouted viciously. "You've been making reports on me since the beginning Scully, taking your little notes!"

Her breath caught painfully in her chest at his verbal attack, her eyes stinging slightly as his resentment boiled over the air between them. "Mulder, you're sick, you're not thinking straight." She squeezed her eyes tightly against the moisture seeping just on the edges. "I'm on your side. You know that." After all this time, after everything they had been through, how could he not know that about her?

"Look, you have my files and you have my gun, son't ask me for my trust."

"Mul..."

Her phone beeped loudly as she realized Mulder was already gone.

"Damn it!" She slammed her phone back in to her pocket as she turned to the technician, who was trying to look all too nonchalant about the conversation she just had. Her eyes burned fiercely as she blinked hard, ignoring the curious look from the man. "How soon can you get me this information?"

"As soon as the Chilmark PD sends us the bullet from the autopsy, I'll have it for you, but till they do, I'm stuck. You can't expect results until tomorrow at the earliest."

Not enough time, her mind screamed. "All right. Give me a call when you have something."

"You heading back up to DC?" The tech called as she spun away, her steps snapping as she made for the exit.

"Yeah," she called back half-heartedly. She was going back to DC, but not to the office. She had to find Mulder, wherever he was, to talk reason to him before he did something stupid, before he hurt himself. Her mind spun, trying to profile the man who was perhaps one of the best criminal profilers in the FBI. What would Mulder do? Where would Mulder go? Someplace safe, maybe, or someplace where he could gather his things to…do what? To try and find his father's murderer of course. But he didn't even know who he was. He lacked a positive ID on the assailant as it was. Where would he eve begin to look?

She had to get to Mulder quickly. She had to stop him from doing whatever it was he planned on doing. He was in grief, he was in mourning, she suspected he was ill with something, and he was being framed for the murder of his father, who may know more about the document that Mulder received than Mulder could have possibly suspected. Scully had a sick feeling she knew why it was so convenient to murder Bill Mulder and why it was he called his son up to Martha's Vineyard. He was going to confess to Mulder what he knew about that document and what he knew about the project, and they had to shut him up before he confessed. Kill two birds with one stone. Convenient how this worked.

She angrily stormed to her car, realizing that this mess had grown so far out of proportion, well out of her capabilities of handling this. And yet, what else could she do at this point? What other choice did she have? If she didn't find Mulder, if she didn't try to find the answers to what this was all about, then everything that had happened to her in this last year, everything she and Mulder had fought and struggled for would be for nothing.

Mulder's apartment was still in the middle of the day, most of its occupants now off at work. She was let into the building and she made her way up to Mulder's apartment, hoping and praying she just might run into him there. However, judging by the silence she found as she unlocked his door, Mulder hadn't been home there either. Nothing had changed since she had left it the night before, not even his clothes had changed. Normally they would be in a crumple in some area of his apartment. 

The only shift was perhaps the position of the fish swimming, oblivious, in their tank. These she fed quickly, as she studied the bullet hole that sat, neat in the glass of his window, where the masking tape X still was glued. Her eyes followed the trajectory of the hole made in the glass in an invisible line to the wall just over Mulder's couch. There, several feet above the back, in the plaster dry wall was a tiny hole. If she had been Mulder's height, it would have taken her out completely. She had never felt so thankful that she was the diminutive size that she was. Kicking off her shoes, she stood, precariously on the couch cushions, the later groaning as her toes dug into the slick surface for balance. Reaching for a pen on the end table by Mulder's couch, she used the long, thin implement to dig into the soft, powdery substance, and pull out the smashed, misshapen lump of metal from the wall.

The bullet that had nearly killed her. Now who fired it? Carefully, she stepped down from the couch, moving to the window to study the bullet better in the light and compare it to the bullet she saw in the windowpane. She was no ballistic expert, but it looked like the same size that was shown to her at Quantico, another 9mm, but it would mean nothing really, as it couldn't possibly be the same as the one that had killed Bill Mulder. All it would prove is that Mulder didn't shoot at her. It wouldn't prove that Mulder didn't kill her father. She frowned as stared absently outside. Could they even pinpoint the true perpetrators of this crime? After all, she couldn't imagine that the men who were willing to hide the truth of whatever was in that document would hire anyone they believed could be easily traced or caught. No leads, minimal evidence, and all paths leading back to Mulder. They may just have run into a situation in which they had no recourse in and no way of getting out of.

Frustrated, she stared at the van across the street as the service worker stepped out, cap pulled low over his face. It wasn't particularly unusual around an apartment complex to see people coming and going doing work. Perhaps the building needed work that the super couldn't manage alone, such as electrical work, or massive plumbing work. Something could be wrong with the heating, or the water….

She didn't know why it clicked with her or what made her think of it. Perhaps it was that old, familiar phrase of "something in the water". Maybe Mulder's intuition was finally rubbing off on her. Curious, she slid the bullet slug into her pocket and rushed from the apartment, down to the basement of the building. Sure enough, she could see the service man whip around the corner of the hallway leading down to the area just as she came in. The basement was a dusty, crowded area, filled with pipes, water heaters, and unused detritus of the super's work keeping the building maintained. But there was also a water filtration system on the wall, used to purify and clean the drinking and tap water that came into the system from the outside. Four pipes lead presumably to different floors, all feeding into a central, box like unit. Quickly, she flipped open the hatch, scanning the set up inside. Three identical filter tubes in a row, and one that was different. Frowning, she pulled it out of the holder, studying it. It was clearly not like the others, and clearly not supposed to be there. But until she could get it to the lab and study how it was it worked and what it was it did, she couldn't be sure what had happened or how it had affected Mulder. Still, she couldn't help but smile darkly, it was evidence, hard evidence, that someone had been deliberately trying to drug and frame Mulder. Now all she needed to figure out was who.

Stuffing the filter in her pocket, she followed the path the service man followed, up the back stairs to the building and towards the alley that led behind Mulder's building. The man hadn't been moving very fast and chances were if she were quick, she could catch him before he made it back to his unmarked van. She clambered up the steps and into the alley - only it wasn't the serviceman she found down there. It was Mulder, and he was beating the hell out of someone who looked suspiciously like - Alex Krycek.

"I'm going kill you anyway Krycek, so you may as well tell me the truth. Did you kill my father?" Mulder's angry voice rang through the narrow confines of the brick alleyway around them. "Did you kill him? Answer me!" He had Krycek pinned to someone's car as he unarmed the other man, holding Krycek's weapon up against his own face.

Oh hell, Scully breathed as she reached for her weapon. This was not good, this was so not good, "Mulder, don't shoot him! Just back away!" She trained her own weapon on Krycek's struggling form. Where the hell had he come from? Krycek had disappeared right after her abduction, to where she hadn't asked. And now he was trapped with a raging, livid Mulder shoving a gun into his face, and God help her Scully actually believed Mulder might just kill him.

"He killed my father, Scully," Mulder insisted hoarsely as he twisted Krycek's arm further back. Krycek howled and cried out.

How the hell did Mulder come to this conclusion, she wondered frantically as she tried to think of anything to talk her partner down from this insane ledge. "I have him, Mulder?" Please, please she silently pleaded. He couldn't do this. If Alex Krycek was the man to kill Bill Mulder, than Mulder would kill Krycek with the very same weapon used on the murder of his father and all the careful evidence she had been trying to piece together all day would go to hell, based on the poisoned delusions of a man who was set up to take a fall.

"No, Scully." Mulder fingerr twitched on the trigger. Scully knew in her gut she couldn't let that happen, even to a scum-sucking, traitor like Krycek. She had to stop it somehow, and at the moment there was only one option being afforded to her. Dear Jesus and the Virgin, she prayed, please let her know what she was doing, please let her aim be as good as she thought it was, and more important, please don't let her hit anything vital. Carefully she aimed at the one person in the entire world she could never imagine firing her weapon at, ever.

The roar of her weapon's discharge rang in her ears as in painful slow motion Mulder's shoulder caught the bullet, spinning him around and off of Krycek, blood spraying from the wound outwards. With a heavy and excruciating sound, Mulder collapsed to the pavement, not even moaning as all went deadly silent for the briefest of moments.

What had she done? She stared at his still body. For a breathless moment she and Krycek stood there, both too stunned to say anything. She wanted to shake herself, to next focus on the man who she knew was somehow involved in her abduction. But she couldn't tear her eyes off of Mulder's prone figure, as Krycek took the opportunity to turn down the alleyway and run, leaving his weapon and the scene behind. Scully wanted to care, but she had just shot the one man on earth she trusted with her life. She wanted to be sick. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a woman shouting for the police. A hysterical giggle formed somewhere on her lips. Call the police? Technically she was the police, Mulder was the police, and she had just shot her partner. He was bleeding to death on the pavement at the moment, unless she did something to get the flow staunched immediately and get Mulder some medical treatment. Re-holstering her weapon, she moved swiftly to Mulder's crumpled figure, rolling him over to examine the wound she had placed in his shoulder.

"Mulder, I'm so sorry," she whispered mournfully, pulling back his shirt and jacked, probing at the still bleeding wound. From what she could see it was just off his shoulder, missing bone and anything vital. By some miracle of God he seemed to be just fine save for the gaping wound and profuse bleeding.

"Did someone get shot?" A terrified, quaking man's voice sounded behind her. Scully turned on a man, a stranger who was staring at her doubtfully as she bent over the form of her partner.

"Yes, my partner did," she murmured, not bothering to clarify that it was her who had shot him. Her mind moved quickly into gear as she glanced up at the man. "I'm with the FBI and a doctor. I need to get him to the hospital and I need your help."

The stranger, a skinny, nervous, blonde man who looked as if he would rather be anywhere, doing anything other than helping her at that moment. "How do I know…"

She glanced about frantically for anything to staunch the flow. "Look, the badge is in my pocket. I'd get it out for you, but this man his bleeding to death." She searched through Mulder's pockets for anything she could use as a makeshift bandage. "Do you have a handkerchief, a bandana, anything?"

The man shifted nervously as he slung off a backpack from his thin shoulders, digging through it briefly. "I have gym socks, if that's a help?"

"Clean ones?" She reached for the bottom edge of Mulder's shirt. She was going to owe him another one. She grabbed a corner and began, with difficulty, to tear it.

"Yeah, I haven't been yet." Se cautiously crossed to her, a rolled up pair of thick, men's athletic socks in hand. "Should I call an ambulance, have someone come out to help?"

No, Scully's mind screamed, warningly. The last thing they needed was there to be an official report on file about this. "We don't have that kind of time," she lied, unrolling the socks. "If you could, lift up his head so I can reach behind him."

The man stared at her as if she had asked him to stick his bare hands into burning coals.

"Please, just help me get him bandaged up so I can get him to the hospital." Her tone was as polite as she could manage under the circumstances. Reluctantly, the man did so, moving around and behind Mulder to lift his head and shoulder up, kneeling to hold Mulder's lolling, dark head still while Scully studied the exit wound on the other side. All signs appeared to indicate that the bullet had gone through cleanly. She gently placed one sock as a pad on one side, and one sock as a pad on the other. Then with the strip of cotton from Mulder's shirt she bound the two in place, clumsily, but enough to get him to her apartment where she could pick up her own medical supplied to properly doctor the wound.

"Should we call the police?" The man watched her work, timidly. To be honest, Scully was shocked she hadn't heard the sirens coming already, especially after the woman had shouted down the way.

"Agent Mulder and I were in pursuit of a suspect who attacked my partner and fled." Scully rattled the story off unthinking. It was close to the truth, enough so that she doubted the man would question it. She hastily wiped her partner's blood of her hands and onto his already blood stained shirt, reaching into her pocket for where her badge was tucked. She produced it for the stranger. "The man got away on foot from what I can tell."

"I saw him running," the man affirmed. "I don't know where he went."

Damn, Scully swore. She suspected that when she had let Krycek flee, she wouldn't be able to find him again. But now she at least had a name to offer her superior officer when he asked. 

Shit! She remembered, her meeting with OPR and Skinner. What would she say to them? What could she say to them? A man who had once been partnered with Agent Mulder is suspected of killing his father and poisoning Agent Mulder's water supply, at the same time forcing Scully to have to shoot her own partner? Who would ever possibly believe that?

"I need answers," she mumbled, mostly to herself. She glanced up at the stranger. "You think you can help me get him to my car?"

"Uhhh…sure," the man agreed, looking as if she wasn't giving him much of a choice. And perhaps she wasn't, but he was nearly as tall as Mulder and was able to hold her partner's heavy, upper body as Scully grabbed his feet and began to carry him down the alley and around the side to the front.

"You really are FBI, and this isn't some sort of strange, government assassination, is it?" The man asked, wide eyed and worried as they came around to the public side of the apartment building. No one, it seemed, was around, or at least no one who seemed to overly care much.

"Does he look as if he is dead," Scully snapped as they reached her car. She carefully set Mulder's feet on the ground as she unlocked the passenger's side door and opened it. "Get him inside, carefully please." She helped direct Mulder's heavy body into the seat of her car as he moaned softly and his head rolled back on the seat's headrest. She carefully adjusted his seat belt and closed the door, watching as her partner's perspiring face lay slack against the glass.

"Is he going to be okay?" the man whispered over her shoulder, staring at the sight of her partner passed out in her car.

"He will be once I get him some medical attention," she murmured, turning on him. "Thank you for your assistance." What was one supposed to say to a stranger who helped her carry her unconscious partner? She reached in her pocket and pulled out her business cards, passing him one with her name on it. "If you happen to see the man who ran out of the ally again, the one who shot my partner, give me a call, please. He's wanted as a suspect in a murder."

The man was so stunned, he nearly dropped the piece of paper. "A what?"

She had no time for this, "Please, just call. Thank you for your assistance." She waved at her unconscious partner and hurried to her side of the car, sliding inside before the blonde stranger could ask her any further questions.

"It's all right, Mulder," she murmured as she pulled away from the curb. He moaned softly. She had to get him someplace safe, someplace where she could tend his wound and not have to worry about reports to the police. At the same time, she needed to find the answers to what was going on here, what was in that document that was important enough for someone to go to such lengths to ruin their lives and their reputations. She had to get to Albert Holsteen in New Mexico, and she couldn't just wait to call him and have him come here. She would have to go to him instead.

Her mind spun as she formulated her idea. She would go home, gather some things, her medical supplies and fresh clothes. Mulder she would just have to facilitate along the way, if he bothered to wake up at all. She should just keep him sedate the whole trip, allow his wound to heal and his weary, overwrought mind to rest. Besides, she needed him quiet while she made the three-plus day journey to New Mexico.

She was going to do this, she realized with a painful jolt. She was going to defy her superior officers, not show up for their scheduled meeting, and make off with a partner who was wanted in connection with the death of his father. Dear God, she prayed she was doing the right thing and not destroying what future she had left with the FBI and for herself. She glanced sideways at Mulder. What sort of future would she have now, knowing the things that she knew? Would anyone even let her have a future, risking the knowledge she had, or would she end up like Mulder's father, assassinated for the secrets that she held?

She turned her car in the direction of Georgetown and sped there as fast as all legal speed limits allowed.


	120. Repercussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully leaves Mulder to face the repercussions of her actions.

Two-and-a-half days worth of dirt and sweat ran down the water pouring over her skin, but it didn't erase the worry, fear and guilt that coursed through Scully's mind as she stood under the full force of the shower's blast. The water was scalding, her pale skin lobster pink now, and her heart thrummed painfully as she washed and rinsed her red hair in the steam. The possible repercussions for all of her actions screaming in her mind. Censure, dismissal, termination. She could have just ended everything by what she did, not to mention jail time if she wasn't able to prove Mulder's innocence in a timely fashion. Her entire life, her entire career thrown to the wind for the sake of one man and his quest and that damned document that had come into his possession.

They had tested on her. For what? Doing what? She suddenly felt naked and vulnerable and not just because she was in the shower, either. She felt as if a million eyes were watching her now, a million needles probing and poking her, the secrets of herself, of her body exposed to men and women who lacked faces and names, but knew things about her that she didn't even know herself. For the first time in months she felt strange and foreign in her own skin, like she had those horrible days after her release from the hospital. They had done things to her. She knew that now, but she didn't know why, let alone what purpose it served. All she knew was that she had been right, there had been testing by the government, secret testing and vaccinations going on, for what purpose she couldn't say. In his way, Mulder had been right as well. It was a program that went back decades, a planned silence by the government. They knew about the testing and kept secret from the public, the information clouded even in its encryption. She had no way of knowing what the jargon meant, but the scant picture that was drawn for her at the moment was enough to terrify her. They had done things to her and she wanted to know what and why.

She turned off the shower, reaching for a towel, listening for the noises of Mulder in next room. He seemed to be fine, despite the shock of the last few days on his system. His fever was gone and his wound was healing with little infection. Given a few weeks he would have full use of that shoulder again. She was lucky she was as good of a shot as she was, and hell, she wouldn't put it past a little divine intervention either. She could have easily done more damage to Mulder than she did and have been forced to take him to the hospital. Then she would never have gotten to New Mexico or to Albert Holsteen with the files. She imagined he was in there now, reviewing them over with the elderly, Navajo man, asking questions, trying to formulate answers. Had he even had time to grieve for the loss of his father yet, she wondered? He was angry, obviously as his attempt to kill Krycek showed, but had he had a chance to let all of this sink in? Did he even know the role his father played in all of this? He would find out, she realized numbly as she pulled on her clothes and ran her fingers through her wet hair. Bill Mulder's name was in those files too, as a man who knew about this conspiracy, who knew about the silence and the tests, and yet his role in it was as shadowy as all of the rest of it. Did mean that Bill Mulder was involved in the very conspiracy of silence that took Scully? His words to her in Alaska, about the things he had done to his family, about the knowledge of his daughter's abduction before hand, the warnings he had, they all flooded back to her as she studied herself in the mirror. Did he work have anything to do with Samantha's abduction? Was she taken because of the nature of his involvement in this conspiracy? Was that why he felt such guilt and remorse over her disappearance? Was that why he pushed his son so hard to remember?

Steam rolled out of the bathroom as she stepped into the motel room, Mulder's low voice going over the documents with Albert's rough, gravely voice beside, sounding out the Navajo words carefully for Mulder's stumbling tongue. How far had he gotten in the documents? And how much did he know already? Had he learned about his father yet? Had he read her name in there? What did he think? What did he suspect?

She cleared her throat loudly, causing both men to turn to her as she smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have to get going soon. I have to drive back to DC by myself and the sooner I get back there, the better. I'm afraid Skinner will have my ass already the moment I get back. Before I go I want to have one last look at that wound, Mulder." She nodded to his shoulder, hidden now under the new, clean shirt she had purchased for him on their drive out.

"Sure." He turned to Albert behind him, who glanced between the two of them quietly, before moving genially towards the door.

"I'll wait downstairs then," he murmured in his low, warm voice. "You'll tell me, FBI Agent, when you are ready?"

"Yeah." Mulder nodded as the elderly Navajo gentlemen, with his long, silvered hair, moved out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

"So you need me to take off my shirt, Doc?" Mulder waggled an eyebrow suggestively as he reached for his shirt buttons, a slight grin creasing the mouth that just days ago had accused her of the ultimate of betrayals. She nodded, relieved that whatever was wrong with him before, he seemed to be back to normal.

"Yeah, please," she murmured as carefully eased the shirt off of his shoulders, her bandage standing out against his skin. She grabbed her medical bag, pulling it to the bed as Mulder sat on the edge, motionless in front of her as she reached cool fingers to tug on the adhesive strip.

"Ahh!" he winced slightly as the tape pulled at hairs. She murmured apologies as she moved slowly, pulling the pieces off with as much care as she could manage. Mulder sat quietly, watching her as she worked.

"Thanks for not hitting anything vital there." His voice was low and soft in her ear, his breath close to her cheek as she leaned in to study the puckered, but healing wound.

"I think you are just damn lucky that I'm as good of a shot as I am." Scully smiled tightly, avoiding his gaze. "I prayed to God, Jesus, and the Virgin I wouldn't kill you."

"I'll chalk it up to the instruction of one Rear Admiral William Scully and the fine teachers at the FBI Academy." Mulder grinned at her, trying to illicit the same response out of her. Somehow, Scully couldn't manage.

"I'm sorry about your father, Mulder." She sighed softly, apologizing yet again. And she was sorry, sorry for all of it, what happened to his father, for what his father was involved in, for the fact that Mulder had to find out this way, for all of it.

"Thank you." He nodded his head slowly, sadly. "You saw my father's name in those files, didn't you?"

"Yeah." She raised one knee on to the mattress, leaning against his shoulder gently as she repeated the bandage process on the back of his shoulder. He didn't move, but held her weight for the few moments it took her to do her work.

"I think," Mulder began quietly. "I think that is what my father was trying to tell me about when I went up there, about the document. I think he knew I had it, someone told him, and he wanted to tell me his side of things, his story, but they never gave him the chance."

"This is going to sting a lot," she warned as she pulled out her disinfectant, spraying both wounds quickly as he hissed with pain.

"He died asking for my forgiveness. Do you think it was for this?"

Scully wasn't sure how to answer that question. In her heart, she wanted to believe that Bill Mulder had indeed looked towards those last seconds on earth to beg his son's apologize for the information he knew Fox would discover. But how could she be sure? Her eyes flew up to his as he watched expectantly, unsure of what to say or how to make this better.

"You know," she sighed, reaching into her bag for ointment and bandaging. "The wonderful thing about the human body is, as a doctor, you can always say whether you know how to fix things. I can discover what is wrong with the human body. I can diagnose a cause. I can determine if I can treat it or if it killed you. But I'm not mind reader." She cut her eyes sideways at him as she applied the ointment gently on his healing scabs, covering over the blood that still occasionally oozed onto the padding. "I want to believe, Mulder, that your father died wanting you to know the truth about his life, his involvement and what that means to your quest. But I can't be sure. I do know, though, that you father died very proud of the fact that you were his son and that despite everything, you turned out to be a man of integrity and strength, a man who stood by his beliefs. And no matter what those documents may or may not show about your father, you will never get the whole picture, but it doesn't change the fact that he loved you and he was proud of you. I should know, I asked those questions about my father."

Her words were met with silence from Mulder, as he nodded, his open gaze becoming guarded as he turned from her, considering her words for the briefest of moments. It hurt, slightly, to see him cut her off so, his angry outburst still ringing in her ears. He had, of course, been under the influence of the drugs filtered in his water. But for them to have that sort of effect on him, he needed an impetus, a kernel to draw his harsh criticism from. And she knew that no matter what, no matter what they had been through, a part of Mulder still doubted her, doubted her reports to their superiors, doubted her intentions to their work. After everything she had just put on the line for him, that barb in particular stung the worst.

As if reading her thoughts, Mulder's voice rumbled low in her ear as she began taping the new bandages to his skin. "I remember what I said to you that morning, Scully, when you took my weapon. I remember what I accused you of."

"You were sick, out of your mind with the drugs. It's all right. You punched Skinner, too, and if we make it out of this in one piece, I'm sure he'll be understanding." She was lying, of course, because she didn't believe they would make it out of this one piece and she had no doubt that Skinner's sense of humor didn't stretch that far.

And damn Mulder and his perception, he knew she was lying too. He reached long fingers to pause her work. "Don't think I don't know what you did and are doing now for me, Scully, what you are laying on the line here because of me. I know you had a meeting with OPR that day, and you are likely going back to suspension at best, dismissal at worst. Hell, I know my job is long gone." He chuckled regretfully. "I put you in this position, and for that I'm sorry. And I know I can't make it better for you. But know this, Scully, no matter what, I trust you. Completely." He reached for her fingers, still holding the sticky tape as she tried to lay it down, squeezing them tightly before letting them go.

Damn it all, she quietly fumed as her eyes glazed briefly in front of her. His ability to read her was making it awfully difficult to keep up her calm facade. That was what Mulder did, he read people like a book. She fixed them, he understood them, and between the two of them they could both manage to totally fuck up their jobs. She would have laughed if their situation weren't so dire.

"Well, if it means anything, I'm sorry for shooting you," she offered despite the stinging of tears in her eyes. "I would have shot Krycek if I thought it would do any good. But I couldn't get you to listen to reason, Mulder."

"You did what you had to do." Mulder shrugged, wincing as the gesture pulled at the wounds and the tape that she had just finished laying down on his skin. "You're right, if I had killed Krycek, all the evidence would have just mounted and pointed at me and they would have twisted it whatever way they wanted. You did what was necessary and I don't blame you for that."

"I could have killed you," she responded simply, trying to hide the tears, fear, and grief she felt. The sick horror she felt as he lay there on the pavement, her bullet in his shoulder, his blood pooling on the pavement around him. It wasn't some other strange man's gun this time, it was her weapon, her fault.

"But you didn't. I'm fine, despite myself," Mulder pointed out with forced cheerfulness. "And you know, it wouldn't have ever come to that if the drugs hadn't been put into my filtration system, which you were clever enough to discover."

"I suppose," she acknowledged as she began putting away her things. As she turned away, he stopped her, reaching for the spot along her still damp hairline that was scabbed over from the other night. The bullet wound she had taken from the shot sent through his window. His fingers grazed it gently as she frowned up at it, her eyes almost crossing with the effort.

"I'm fine, Mulder, really. It was only a flesh wound. It bled more than the damage done." She brushed his fingers aside as she continued to put her things away.

"You could have died," he replied. "And that would have been equally my fault."

"You didn't fire that gun," she snapped, perhaps with more force than was necessary.

"No, but I put you in that position. And I am sorry, Dana, for all of this." He rose from the bed as she closed up her bag and reached for his shirt.

She knew he was sorry. He was always sorry. "Mulder, just find the answers. Find out why my name in that document, what the merchandise is, and the vaccinations. I need you to find the answers to all of this."

He was grave as he put on his shirt and carefully buttoned it up. "I will, Scully. For you and for my father."

She closed her medical bag and looked around the hotel, gathering the things she had left about, her computer, her clothes, her overnight bag, and began packing them in orderly fashion. Mulder silently watched her, standing still as she moved about, as if trying to ponder what to even say in response.

"You know," he finally spoke into the growing silence. "You once said you would only ever put yourself on the line for me. Why?"

Scully neatly folded her dirty clothing, packing it in her overnight bag, as she considered her response to Mulder's question carefully. "Because no matter how crazy you sound, how out there your theories are, Mulder…you don't believe blindly, and you don't believe without cause, without reason and research. It's that strength in your belief, that utter faith you have in the rightness of your decisions. Your stubborn will, your hope in the face of everything that is bleak that in the end your cause is true, I think that more than anything convinced me that if you could do that, place your entire reputation on the line for that, I could do no less."

"As a fellow soldier in the trenches?" He smiled, faintly.

"No," Scully shook her head as she zipped up her bag. "No, as a friend, Mulder, as someone who cares about you and the work you do, not just because I get paid for it, but because I believe. I believe because you believe."

"You don't always believe me, Scully."

He had her there. "Not always, but I question you, Mulder because I want to believe. I need you to give me the reasons to believe and you need me to question those beliefs now and again, to help you understand why it is you believe, too."

A slow, lazy smile spread on his lean, angular face. "I do need you around, Scully, and I hope to God we work this out."

"I hope so, too," she whispered, gathering her bags, and looking for her purse. It rested on a table by the door. "I've left some supplies in the bathroom for your wound. Make sure to change the dressing twice a day and use the disinfectant and ointment on it or it will get infected."

He rolled his eyes and nodded, but made no further comment.

"And call me when you find whatever it is out there in the desert with Mr. Holsteen, no matter what happens in DC, Mulder. I need to know."

"I know. I will."

"Thank you." She moved for the door, her things gathered. For whatever reason, she had this horrible, creeping fear this would be the last time she ever saw Fox Mulder again, as if she knew that when she went to Washington, her career and their partnership would be at an end.

"Goodbye and good luck," she murmured as she opened the door.

Why was it she felt as if she was leaving Mulder to his doom as stepped outside and over to her own parked car? Was it his doom, she mused darkly, or her own?


	121. What Have They Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully witnesses the fate of Mulder.

The painted landscape of the Southwestern desert flew into a blur as her car bulleted through the quiet and deserted highways, her mind on anything else other than the stunning vistas around her. Not that she was immune to the stark contrast of light and dark on sandstone, or the lonely way sagebrush blew across the road. But breathtaking beauty couldn't quite compare to the firestorm she knew she was facing in DC the minute she stepped into the Hoover Building. Her stomach twisted with the possibilities. She could be suspended from the Bureau at best and it was the situation she prayed would work out. The alternative was dismissal and termination. Would that be such a bad thing, she wondered? After all, she could just return to medicine, the career she had walked away from years ago because of Daniel. She could take the knowledge she now had on the alien virus and perhaps go into virology or infectious disease, try to see what she could do to help further Mulder's research from the heart of science itself. Perhaps she could pinpoint just what this "merchandise" described in the document was, and begin to help get the news out there amongst the scientific community.

She paused, startled by her thoughts. God, she sounded just like Mulder. Perhaps she came at the angle from the realm of science, but her reaction was purely Mulder. Tell the world of the conspiracy of silence by the government, but from the high tower of medical research instead. Obviously it would carry more weight, but would she be any more believable than one man, alone in a desert, screaming to the heavens that we were all doomed? Did she even want to continue Mulder's quest if she were no longer working in the FBI? She had thrown herself passionately into it because, at first, it was her duty. Then it was because she was now personally invested. But if she was no longer a member of the Bureau, if she were a private citizen, free to pursue her own interests once again, would she want to continue with Mulder's quest? Would it be necessary for her? Could she let go of what was done and perhaps focus on other things she was forgoing at the moment? A different career, a husband, maybe a family and children. She wanted kids and her mother kept shooting herself and Melissa suggestive hints every now and again.

It would be a very different life from Fox Mulder's, and perhaps, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It would be a life free from the paralyzing fear she had felt the last few days, from the threats and the near death experiences. She wouldn't have to worry about job security, wouldn't have to fear someone breaking into her home and taking her away in the night, no longer wonder if she was going to go on a simple case that might just kill her. She could spend weekends drinking coffee and reading books, and the worst conspiracy she would ever have to fear is that of why they never seemed to have enough of her favorite cookies at Starbucks in the afternoon. It could be a good life, a quiet life, a fulfilling life. But would it be the right life? Could she walk away from all of this, knowing what she knew now about the virus, about the conspiracy? Scully just didn't know. Hell, she had no idea that any decision she made in the last few days was a good one. She should have told Mulder to get rid of that document, to confess to having it and turning it in. And yet, she didn't.

It had her name in it. What had they done to her?

She had just passed a road sign that marked the miles left till she reached the Texas border when her phone chimed on the seat beside her. Blindly she picked it up, her thumb pushing the on button as she held it to her ear. Please, God, let it be Mulder, she prayed, and not her boss wondering where she was. "Scully."

"Yeah, it's me." Mulder's voice sounded muffled and hollow on the other end of the phone.

"Where are you?" It sounded like he was in a bunker somewhere, or a warehouse, something that caused his voice to reverberate into the phone.

"Nowhere I ever expected." There was awe and horror in his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm in a boxcar buried inside a quarry. There are bodies everywhere."

"Bodies?"

"Stacked floor to ceiling." Mulder was maddeningly vague as she heard him shuffle, wherever he was at.

"What happened to them?" Could he at least answer that? Were the bodies fresh or not? What it looked like in there. Couldn't Mulder give her anything?

"I don't know," he admitted slowly. A whole boxcar full of corpses and he didn't know what happened to them? She swallowed, considering, thinking over the document, what she had understood of it, and what it implied. They had discussed testing, done on humans, and involving doctors brought over from Europe after World War II, scientists who Scully suspected had been working on human experiments at the time, and who brought that expertise to the US governments own, new secret program.

"Mulder, in these files I found references to experiments that were conducted here in the US by Axis Power scientists who were given amnesty after the war."

"What kind of experiments?"

That had been the maddening part of that document, the jargon. She could only guess at what was going on. "Some kind of tests, on humans. What they referred to as merchandise."

Mulder was quiet for long moments as she heard him rustling around. When he spoke, it was with doubtful wariness. "But these aren't human Scully. From the look of it, I'd say they were alien."

Except, she reasoned to herself, there was no such thing as aliens or at least nothing that could be proven conclusively on the fact. "Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty damn sure," Mulder responded absently. "Wait a sec…"

There was silence and shuffling on the other end again as Scully found herself biting her lip nervously and wondering, against her better judgment, if she should return.

"This one," Mulder paused, briefly. "This one has a smallpox vaccination scar."

Smallpox vaccination? That was a standard part of all immunization programs for children, everyone born in the last fifty years in the US carried such scars on their arms.

Since the program of merchandise, experiments, and vaccination was started, Scully realized frantically. "Mulder…"

"Oh my God, Scully!" Mulder gasped in sudden realization as the pieces began to fall into place for him as well. "What have they done?"

"Done what?" There was static, a crackling on the other end, as suddenly her phone beeped at her. Frantic, she tore it from her ear and glanced at the glowing, green LED screen. Mulder had lost signal.

Just what had he found out there?

Her heart lurched inside of her as she considered what Mulder was up to, what his find was. It could be evidence, hard evidence of what was in that document, of what was done to her. It could prove everything that they had risked themselves for this last week. It would prove, certainly, that Mulder wasn't as crazy as everyone wanted to make him out to be. It would be verifiable evidence, for the first time ever, in their hands.

"This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid!" She muttered low to herself, as she slowed enough to do a U-turn in the middle of the lonely road in northern New Mexico, and turn back the way she came, back to Farmington, back to Mulder and his evidence. She had been going to do the right thing, the responsible thing, and always he drew her back into the mad, crazed, whirlwind of his existence. She couldn't help herself, she had to know what was going on. She had to understand.

Ignoring all safe speed laws in that lonely corner of the world, Scully pushed her sedan hard down the road, towards the Navajo reservation, towards Albert Hosteen's homestead, out in the quiet, arid desert country. Her tires threw up dust clouds behind her as she barreled down dirt roads that her practical sedan wasn't designed to speed down. Hopefully, there was still someone at the Hosteen house to take her out where Mulder was, to get her to the lonely boxcar in the middle of the desert where he and his stack of bodies were hidden.

Much to her surprise, as she pulled into the driveway of the Hosteen's solitary home, there was someone there all right, though not in any condition to take her anywhere. She rushed inside to find the front room in shambles and Albert's middle-aged son tending a nasty looking wound on the elderly man's face.

"What happened?" She gasped, stunned as she looked around the ruined remains of the Hosteen's own home.

"There were men." Albert's son muttered darkly, glaring about the carnage of his home, before scowling at Scully, as if she were to blame for laying this at their feet. And in a way, she realized horribly, she was.

"They were looking for your partner," Albert confirmed, lined face worried despite the gash across his own forehead. Fear spiked through Scully as she recalled the sudden silence, the cutting off of Mulder as she had been talking to him on the phone. He had been in the boxcar, he had seen the bodies, and then his voice disappeared.

Oh God, she breathed, as from out of the back, Albert's grandson stumbled out, the teenaged boys face looking as if it had been used as a punching bag. A nasty laceration cut his lip, swelling it to twice its normal size, as one of his eyes sealed shut, purpled. His good eye wouldn't meet hers as he glanced sideways at his shaken grandfather.

"Eric said the men found the boxcar. They threw grenades inside. Your partner was in there." Albert's voice filled with compassion as turned to her. "I'm sorry."

Sorry? Scully found herself suddenly unable to breathe. Mulder couldn't be dead. It just wasn't possible. Mulder was smart, resourceful, he would know to get out of there, and he would know he had to get out. He would find a way around this. Perhaps there was a place he could hide, some way he could get out. Mulder couldn't be dead, it was impossible, not now, not this close, not with the evidence at their fingertips.

"Take me there," she murmured softly. "Take me to the boxcar, take me to what Mulder saw."

Eric's father reached for his child, protectively. "Wait a minute, I'm not letting my son…"

"Let Eric take her there," Albert interjected, over his son's protestations. "She needs to see what happened to her partner." The elderly gentlemen reached wrinkled fingers for his grandson's elbow. "Take here there, but be careful. Those men have eyes, and they may not have hidden all their secrets."

Something about Albert's words chilled Scully as she turned to the boy and his injuries. "Let me see what I can do for your cuts before we go." She had to offer that much. She had brought this down on this family, she had to do something to repay them. All her decisions, all her choices, all of her fault; the Hosteen's attacked….Mulder. No, she had to see that for herself, she had to see the truth. He might not be dead, he could be alive, she had to believe he was alive. 

How many prayers had she uttered in the last few days? Hundreds? As a Catholic, of course she had been raised with the idea that prayer was the refuge of all those who sought help in guidance in hard times. It came as automatically to her as breathing. She didn't attend mass regularly she hadn't since she left for college as a teenager. But she still recited the prayers she remembered from catechism class as a child, from her years in elementary school, attending a Catholic school. Was there a patron saint for the likes of Fox Mulder? Did the angels look out for a man as avowedly atheist as her partner?

She had to believe they did. 

Eric Hosteen pulled his ramshackle bike along the top of a canyon, overlooking a broad, dried river basin below, where a pile of rocks still smoked ominously. The dark cloud rose above the searing heat of June in the desert, billowing from a black hole in the pile of fallen rocks and rubble. A hole led to the sealed boxcar below…one where Mulder had been speaking to her just hours ago.

Heedlessly she scrambled down the narrow, rocky path, Eric's cries to her unheeded as she scrambled over dirt and rocks to the canyon floor, running to the burning mass. The smoke was acrid, reeking of burning bones and scorched metal, the fumes blowing in her face as she tried to get close. Perhaps he had survived, found a way to get out, to manage to climb out before the grenades were thrown in, before the explosion that burned out any concrete evidence of what they knew was in that document.

"Mulder," she yelled into the air, hoping against hope he could hear her. He would know that it was Scully and would come out from wherever he was. She stood still, listening to the awful, awful silence around her. Quiet, so still, not even the hot wind blew through the scrubby brush on the canyon floor. There was nothing….not one answering call.

She wanted to go down there, to see, to find something, a body, maybe, proof that Fox Mulder was down there when it happened. She wanted to see for herself that he was truly dead. Eyes stinging from smoke and tears, she tried to get close, to get to the hole where smoke and heat poured out, a vile smell that choked her as she held a protective arm up to her face.

"No!" Eric's hand grabbed her shoulder, his round, battered face frightened as he pulled her back. "It will burn for hours. I saw what was down there. You can't get in."

"What was down there, Eric," she demanded, yanking her shoulder away from him in frustration. "What did Mulder see?"

"Bodies." Eric's good eye darted nervously through the smoke. "Bodies of people with funny-shaped heads. Bodies of people who had something wrong with them, all over the place, like…like they were in there when they left the car here. Like…like they were buried here to die and never be found."

Die and never be found. "You mean someone just dumped this here, with people still alive in it?"

Eric shrugged mutely, reaching to tug at her sleeve. "We've got to go. They might be back to check."

"But, Mulder," she insisted stubbornly. She wouldn't leave here without knowing for sure, without something to prove he was gone, vecause he couldn't be…he just couldn't….

"I'll get Dad and Grandpa down here when the fire goes out. We've got to go." Eric tugged again, nervously insistent. "Come on!"

She didn't want to go. She didn't want to do this. She couldn't leave him, not after all of this. Scully turned back, torn, the smoking blowing in her eyes, the scent and stench of death covering her.

"I promise, we'll come down. Please, let's go." Eric pleaded, his good eye roaming the canyon lip above. In the distance Scully thought she could hear something, engines maybe. They boy could hear it, too.

"They're coming!" Eric pulled harder on her arm. "Let's go! They'll kill you, too."

Her heart breaking, she turned from the boxcar and dashed back up the steep path to where Eric's bike rested, hidden behind rocks. She climbed easily on the back, behind the boy, her light weight clinging to him tightly as he tore off, like a hare across the desert, well before any of the threatening engines took them over. She turned to glance back silently over her shoulder at the still rising, black cloud, watching as it drifted out over the sands, her eyes blurring with hot tears. They spilled over her cheeks, scalding the skin as she tried not to sob, the wind of their passing drying them before they fell on Eric.


	122. What Will I Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully tells Skinner the fate of Mulder.

Fox Mulder was dead.

The idea seemed so ludicrous to Scully, she couldn't rap her mind around it. It was like telling her Santa Claus was real, or for that matter aliens existed. Fox Mulder couldn't be dead. He was like time, a universal invariant. He couldn't be dead. She had just put him back together, had just spent days praying and that her shot was true, that he would get better, that this wasn't all for nothing.

Dead. Gone. The X-files, his sister, the truth of what were in those files, the truth of what happened to her, that search was now dead along with his father, murdered at the hands of men who would stop at nothing to destroy him, his work, everything Mulder had worked so hard for. Would they destroy her as well now? Or would they leave her alone, content that by herself she would be unable to continue the work that so characterized her partner? Would they simply dismiss her or reassign her to a corner of the FBI where she would never be able to crawl out of. Did she even want to do that anymore?

What was she going to do?

Darkness had settled in New Mexico, blanketing the desert in velvet night as she wiped with futile resignation at her tears. When she finally did leave the Hosteen's house, after patching up the entire family, she had stumbled to her car, numbly directing it back the way she had come, back towards Washington DC, towards home. To answer for the questions she knew were waiting there for her, expecting her to answer for her disappearance, for Mulder's father's death and for Mulder. Dear God, what was she supposed to say about Mulder? What could she possibly tell her superiors about this? That she suspected her partner was dead, caused by men who sought to kill them for the illegal Defense Department documents they had?

Behind Scully, on the miles and miles of dark, lonely desert road, a single light rose up over the horizon. She ignored it at first, thinking it was simply a fast moving vehicle, probably not uncommon on these stretches of endless road in the middle of nowhere. She continued to stare drearily ahead as the light grew behind her, brighter, and faster. She glanced in her rear view mirror, wondering what in the hell it could be coming up that quickly upon her. She had her answer as the ringing sound of chopper blades cutting air filled the cabin around her, light soaring overhead and hovering in front of her car. Scully gasped and swerved at the helicopter that blinded her briefly as it moved from in front of her to the side of her car. Terrified, she pulled to the side of the road, gravel kicking up as her tires crunched under her brakes. In the field beside her, the helicopter landed and three figures, dressed in military gear, leapt out of the car at her.

What in the hell was this?

One opened her car door roughly, yanking her out despite her protestations. Another, a female began searching her car up and down. The third held his weapon trained on her, while the first forced her to face her own car, his hands frisking her quickly, finding her service weapon, but not removing it.

A small kernel of hope formed in the back of her brain, a hysterical thought born out of her disbelief. "Where's Agent Mulder," she demanded over thumping beat of the helicopter blades.

"Turn and face away," the man demanded. She cooperated of course. Her fear and confusion meant she could do no less. She glanced back at the female trooper who crawled out of the car and went to the trunk of her car instead. Scully had a sinking feeling she knew exactly what this woman was looking for; her copy of the file, the one she had with her. The woman found her briefcase and immediately rifled through it, pulling out the papers Scully had printed out and stuffing them in her jacket.

Scully felt her already plummeting heart sink further as the papers disappeared. Her last connection with any evidence, anything she could show to her superiors about what was going on, was now gone. The woman continued looking through her case though as the man behind her barked. "We need the DAT copy." 

She could feel the muzzle of a handgun against her ribs as she tried to keep from yelping in pain. Her fear and her irritation were getting the better of her. "I don't have it!" 

Was this what all this was about, the DAT tape, the one she didn't have to begin with?

"Who has it," he demanded roughly.

"Agent Mulder." She spat that back at him with some small satisfaction. She was lying, she would have known if he had the tape, but it hadn't been on his person when she was treating him and he was most likely the only person who knew where it was. Now he was dead.

The trooper behind her released her angrily, though he said nothing. She turned to glance at him as he jerked his head to the other two. "Let's go!" 

Without a word the others followed their leader back to the waiting helicopter. Scully watched, seething, as the craft took off, flying into the night with the only hard evidence she had of the document, the only copy she carried with her. Now, even that was gone.

The document gone…her career gone…Mulder gone. She found herself crumpling to the ground by her car, not caring that she was sitting by the side of the road, bitter tears of frustration, hurt, and loss pouring out as she bent her head to her knees. After all of this, after all she had sacrificed, all that she had put on the line for this, it all came down to nothing. She viciously picked up the closest stone she could reach, and threw it, hard, across the hard-baked sands, screaming in anger as it skipped somewhere into the darkness.

She could have been sitting there for minutes or hours, she didn't know. She felt as if an entire well of sorrow had opened up, swallowing her whole, leaving her unable to breath, unable to think. When she could cry no more tears, she leaned her head back against the car, staring into the thick darkness. In the end, she had no choices. She had to return to Washington, to face the choices she had made. She had defied her superior, she had abetted in Mulder's escape, she had thwarted an ongoing investigation, and she had a party to the acceptance of classified documents meant for Defense Department eyes only. She had done wrong, no matter what. She would have to face the music. That is what a good agent would do. Was she a good agent? It was hard to say. The FBI at the moment would say no. She had willingly broken the law, had ignored protocol and had caused the death of a fellow agent. Mulder might have said yes, she was a good agent, because she had followed the questions and searched for answers, no matter what harsh truths they led to. In the end, all Scully knew was that she had lost everything, even Mulder.

Slowly she got up from the pavement, brushed off her now dusty clothes and crawled into the front seat. She glanced at herself in the rear view mirror. God, she looked like hell. She rubbed at her swollen, smudged eyes, as if trying to force back on the face of the calm, cool, collected Dana Scully. She reached for her cell phone in the seat beside her, dialing the number to the FBI main switchboard at headquarters.

"Can you direct me to Assistant Director Skinner's private line," she murmured when someone picked up. "This is Agent Dana Scully. It's urgent that I speak to him now."

It took four rings before her boss answered, "Hello?"

"Sir, I'm sorry to bother you at home," Scully began, as her mind raced to think of what to say or how to put this.

"Scullym where the hell are you?" He was obviously surprised, but there was also anger and concern. "You were scheduled to have a meeting with us three days ago, you never showed, where are…"

"I'm outside of Los Alamos, New Mexico at the moment, sir." She took a deep breath "Sir…Agent Mulder…" Her throat tightened. If she didn't say it out loud, it wasn't real, her mind hysterically told her.

"Is Mulder with you? Do you realize he's wanted for questioning in the death of his father?"

"Sir, Agent Mulder is dead." She said, the words cold as they left her mouth. "This morning. Killed by men who wanted to hide information Agent Mulder had come into contact with. The same men who killed his father." She paused. How much did she want to tell Skinner about all of this? "They knew something about what was in those documents, something that they are afraid of us knowing, and they killed them both for it."

There was such a long, silent pause at the other end of the phone. For a moment Scully was afraid that she had lost connection to Skinner all together. He finally cleared his throat, his tone shocked and grave as he spoke. "Agent Scully, I suggest you get back to Washington as fast as you can. There will be questions, things that they will want answered."

Always 'they', she thought bitterly. "Of course, sir."

"Scully..." 

Skinner stopped. She waited patiently for him to continue as she started her car once again.

"I'm sorry for Agent Mulder's loss, Scully. Despite it all, Mulder was a man of conviction, which is a rare commodity in our line of work anymore."

A rare commodity, Scully snorted. She thought longingly for a moment of her father. "It his conviction was so prized, sir, why did he die?"

Skinner had no answer for that.

"I'll be in Washington in two days, as fast as my car will get me there. Thank you, sir." She hung up the phone without giving him the chance of closing their conversation. She didn't care to. Convictions be damned. Mulder was dead and she had a feeling the men who did this to him would never, ever be found or tried for their crimes, no matter how much respect Skinner may or may not have had for her partner.


	123. See Her Walking In The Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully deals with the aftermath of New Mexico and Mulder's death.

The skin on the back of her heels was raw and her pinky toes ached on both feet, but Scully circled the National Mall again, the large expanse of green grass between all of the national landmarks in Washington DC. Around her in the June sunshine tourists gathered in droves, following guides who called to them with loud bull horns, telling them facts about the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the reflecting pools. They all nodded and stared, impressed with these grandiose symbols of their national government, these man made statements on the wonder and grandeur that was the United States of America. If only they knew. Scully threaded her way through group, all wearing identical, bright blue shirts that read "Calvary Baptist Church, Fenton, Missouri." They smiled appreciatively up at the solitary obelisk that pierced the sky, taking pictures and pouring over guidebooks. They had no idea that the very same government who erected these monuments and worked in these buildings also perpetuated a lie for decades, of testing, of medical engineering, of secrets. And even if they did, she sighed, what good would it do telling them? They would just chalk it up to Commies, or terrorists, or some other group. Would it now be home grown, domestic terrorists? Would that be the new reason to justify the crimes done? Would Mulder and his father's deaths be chalked up to nothing more than some crazed group out there who hated the government? Knowing Mulder's predilections, probably.

She fingered the plastic tape case in her fingers sorrowfully, staring through the clear cover at the emptiness inside. The DAT tape was gone. All the evidence she had of what was going on. The information on the testing, the vaccinations, her, she had nothing. And now, she realized, as she looked up at the group moving down the green to another sight, she didn't even have a job. She was on "administrative leave" while they investigated the accusations she made in her report. Skinner had, of course, filled her with the expected platitudes of finding Mulder's killers and tracking down the men who did this, but Scully knew better. These men wouldn't be caught or brought to justice. They meant not to be caught and Skinner had no influence to right the wrongs done here, no matter what he thought. She had a feeling Skinner believed her, but he had chosen the position he was in, sitting the fence, and to protect it, he could do nothing about it. He couldn't bring justice here, any more than she could bring Mulder back from the dead.

Dead! The words left her feeling cold despite the sticky, mugginess off the Potomac River. The truth hadn't sunk in, not really, until the moment she stepped into their office that morning. It looked just as she had left it days ago when she had first been called into Skinner's office about Mulder's behavior. His basketball sat just where he had tossed it last. His desk was still a raging mess, overflowing with files, newspapers, and clippings. Even his projector carousel sat on his worktable, half its slides still left out, as if he intended on finishing the work, but had been sidetracked. Their office was completely marked by the hand of Fox Mulder, and he would not be coming back.

She had turned and fled then, grabbing her things, turning in her badge and service weapon and exiting the building with as much self respect as she could muster. She made it to the National Mall and walked, just as Mulder would do when he was troubled or worried. She sat staring at the Washington Monument for some time, but the tourists and heat drove her off eventually. She had no desire to return home to her apartment, to the stillness there. She knew she would only sit by the phone and wait for the call that she knew wouldn't come from Mulder, telling her that he was all right. Instead, she limped with her broken feet to her car, parked several blocks away, just in time to save her nearly empty meter from the parking enforcement she saw coming her way. Scully needed comfort, reassurancem someone on whose shoulder she could cry, and who would tell her that everything would be all right.

She turned her car on and quickly began the trip to Baltimore, to her mother's house.

It was after dark when she pulled in, her feet now swollen so much inside her shoes that even the action of braking the car cut into her skin, causing it to bleed and sting. She hissed as she slipped off the pumps and heedless of the stockings that she wore climbed out of her car and up the steps to her mother's home. She hadn't called ahead of time. She hadn't wanted to worry Maggie till she was there, face to face, to explain what had happened. Out of habit, she knocked on the front door, not even realizing what she was doing till after her mother's footsteps could be heard coming to answer it. It was her parents' home, after all, she could just walk in, and yet she stood there, feeling small, bereft, and broken as her mother opened the door inquisitively, shocked to see her youngest daughter standing on the front porch like a guest coming to pay a visit.

"Dana, what..." 

Maggie Scully stopped as saw the look on Scully's face.

"Hi, Mom," she whispered, feeling like a child again, as if she had skinned her knee doing something stupid on her bike once more. Maggie's first impulse was to of course look her daughter over head to toe and ensure that she was all right, her eyes lighting on Scully's swollen feet, bare feet.

"What did you do with your shoes?" She sounded much as she did when Scully would return home from long, summer rambles in San Diego, minus her sandals, her feet dirty, blistered, and raw.

"They started giving me blisters," she murmured absently, glancing at her feet. "So, I…"

Clearly confused, Maggie frowned at the street behind her daughter. "You walked all the way here at this time of night?" The unanswered question, of course, was why. And Scully felt the tears that she had held back all day begin to coalesce and fall, streaming down her face almost before she could stop them.

"Oh, Mom," she sobbed, as without a word Maggie wrapped her arms around her youngest daughter, holding her tightly and leading her into the front door of the house.

"What is it, Dana?" She smoothed down Scully's bright hair, her voice filled with fear like she hadn't heard from her mother since she woke up in the hospital months before.

"I've made a terrible mistake. Dad would be so ashamed of me."

"For what?" Maggie held her daughter close, and for a moment Scully could simply pretend that she was a girl again and this was just a little problem, and sitting there with her mother made the whole world feel better. But it wasn't a little problem and she was no longer a little girl. 

"Mulder's dead, Mom." Even now the words seemed too unbelievable to be true, as if she were talking about someone else, some other person named Mulder.

"Fox?" Maggie gasped, pulling away from Scully, shocked and horribly dismayed. "How…"

"Men," Scully burst out angrily, not at her mother, but angry with the entire situation. She pulled away, stalking into the living room as best as she could on her swollen feet, pacing up and down the softness of her mother's carpet. "Mulder came in contact with information about about testing, Mom. Genetic engineering and biological testing, on people, something the government hasn't been open about, and has been keeping secret for years." She stared hard at her mother's confused, doubtful face. "Our own government has been bio-engineering viruses for their own use. I've seen them. I've seen the effects of them." She pressed trembling lips together as she forced herself not to break into tears again. "My name was in these files, Mom. They did these tests on me as well."

"Dana," her mother whispered, shaking her head, "What you are saying…"

"I know what I'm saying, Mom, I'm not making this up." She sniffed, rubbing the back of her hand across her swollen eyes. "But this is me we are talking about, the doctor, the scientist. I wouldn't make these accusations if I wasn't positive of what I saw, of what I know is going on. Mulder found evidence of it, hard evidence, and now he's dead."

Dead. Even Maggie seemed overwhelmed by what that word meant. She sank to the couch solemnly, her blue eyes shining with tears. "Your positive?"

"I'm positive," she whispered as she moved to the couch beside her mother. "This was all my fault, Mom. I was stupid. I knew this was dangerous from the beginning. I knew that and still I chose to defy my superiors, to accept classified information, and to allow my partner to go alone into a situation that ended up killing him." She leaned back into the soft cushion of her mother's couch, staring up at the ceiling above. "I made the choice to break protocol, because I thought what I was doing was right. I didn't know the type of men we were dealing with. I had no idea what they would do." Tears began streaming out of the corners of her eyes again and down her face. "I should have know, Mom. These were the men who took me, who did things to me. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to think about what they did, not until now. I should have known." 

She whispered her last words miserably, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Dana!" Scully could feel the back of Maggie's cool knuckles brushing at her face. "Honey, what happened?"

How could she begin to quantify this for her mother, the magnitude of what she discovered? "Mulder came into contact with classified, government documents from the Defense Department. This documents revealed the truth about a government, bio engineering program. Since he received the documents, a plot to discredit Mulder has been in place, going so far as to poison his water supply at his home, murdering his father and framing him for it. Failing all of that, they murdered him themselves to ensure that the document and anything we found therein would remain secret." God, even as she said it, it sounded fantastic, unreal. She opened her tearful eyes and glanced sideways at her mother. "You think I've made up everything I just told you, don't you?"

It was her mother. Why should she ever question her mother's belief in her? "Dana, since you were just a little thing I don't remember a day in your life when you ever made up a story like that to cover up anything." Her palm cupped her daughter's cheek. "You're honesty is what makes you a good agent, and your loyalty. And I know you, you wouldn't just turn your back on protocol and on rules unless you felt in your heart that what you were doing was one hundred percent right."

Her voice was a broken whisper. "I've messed everything up, Mom!" 

"Dana, you tried to do what you thought was right and it sounds as if you tried against odds that were already stacked against you. I'm sure that Fox, if he were here…" 

She paused, a pained look on her face. "I'm sure if Fox were here he'd tell you the same thing, as would your father."

"By the book, Ahab? He would be horrified I even considered the idea of going against a superior officer, let alone do all the things I did. I threw all reason and caution to the wind for what amounted in the end to be nothing."

"Nothing?" Maggie shook her head sadly at her daughter. "You know the truth of what happened, Dana and I don't think that is simply nothing."

"It doesn't tell me any more about what happened to me, Mom. It doesn't bring back Mulder."

"I know," she whispered softly as she continued to brush the tears from her daughter's face. "Honey, I wish I could make this better for you somehow, I really do."

For the life of her, Scully did as well.

The front door to her mother's home opened as Melissa's familiar, dark auburn head peaked around the corner at her mother and sister. "Anyone home?"

"Hello, Missy," Maggie called, as Melissa came in, her pretty face immediately creasing into a frown as she met Scully's tear-swollen eyes. "Dana, what's wrong?"

"Fox…" 

She couldn't get it out. Did she really have to say this again? She glanced at her mother pleadingly.

"Something happened to him," Melissa set down her purse and immediately dropped to the floor in front of her sister. "I knew something happened, I could feel it. I sensed something was wrong!"

"Missy, Mulder's dead!" Scully she flashed in momentary anger at her startled sibling. "This isn't one of your tarot card tricks or one of your psychic premonitions. Someone I care a great deal about is dead, someone who saved my life." She stormed up, shooting up off the couch and stalking across the room again, ignoring the protests of her raw feet. "For once, could you show a little sensitivity to the situation at hand and not try to make it about crystals and auras? This is serious."

Silence rang in the room after her out burst, her mother starting in between the furious Dana and the stunned and startled Melissa, as if considering if she should step in or not. Perhaps her mother's intuition told her otherwise. "I'll go in the kitchen then, fix some coffee. I think that would calm everyone's nerves." She said it with the sort of certainty of tone that if it didn't calm their nerves, she would, perhaps with pointed words. Scully glanced at her mother guiltily as Maggie made for the kitchen.

"I didn't know, Dana," Melissa murmured, hurt, standing across from her.

"I know," she replied wearily. When was the last time she hadn't felt weary? "I'm sorry. It's been a horrible week."

"I can imagine," Melissa nodded, her dark, blue eyes filled with sympathy and sorrow. "Dana, I know you don't want to hear this right now, but I know that no matter how it feels right now, no matter what you think, I know something good will come of this. I don't think that all hope is lost?"

Perhaps if she hadn't had the sort of week she had, if she hadn't felt the way she did now, she would have had better control of her skepticism around her sister. Normally she did. But now, she couldn't bother, she couldn't muster the strength, "Missy, I don't know what your crystal ball has told you, but I can't just fix this. It's not that simple."

"Perhaps you aren't meant to fix this, Dana. Perhaps this is one of those moments in life you just have to experience and learn something that will enlighten you about yourself, about the world, about the work you do."

"Enlightenment from the death of my partner?" She scoffed, furious. "What should I learn from that, Missy, how I let him down? How I allowed him to die?"

"I don't know, Dana, only you can answer that one." Melissa replied softly. "Perhaps the universe wants you to understand something that you aren't ready to see yet."

Unbelievable, Scully fumed to herself, turning from her sister before she said something else to hurt her. "I don't want the universe to give me messages. I want to know the truth."

"Perhaps this is the truth, Dana, or a version of it."

She had no time for transcendental musings and philosophical debates. "I have to go."

"Dana, I don't think you should be alone," Melissa began.

"Missy, I'm hardly suicidal," she snapped. "I'm a grown woman. I'll be fine."

"Okay." Melissa nodded gently, still worried as she stared at her sister. "I'll come by tomorrow, check in on you?"

"Sure, whatever you want." Scully grabbed her shoes and the car keys she had set beside them, hobbling to the door. "Tell Mom I'm sorry I couldn't stay. I…I just need to go home and think."

"All right." Melissa followed her out. "If you need anything, call me."

"Sure," Scully wouldn't meet her sister's eyes. She didn't want to see the pain she had caused Melissa, no matter how unintentional it was. She turned silently from her sister's sympathetic gaze as she stumbled down to her car, her feet feeling clumsy as she climbed inside.

What lesson was she possibly supposed to learn from something like this, she wondered as she glanced back at her sister, still standing at the door watching her. Right now it hurt to think, hurt to breath, hurt to just exist. And if there was a lesson in that, she couldn't find it, not now at least.


	124. Standard Bearer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully has a late night conversation with a grieving Frohike.

Her mind and body ached with exhaustion, but it was the furthest thing from Scully's mind as she lay in bed, tossing and turning from one side to the other, without surcease. Melissa's words rang in her mind, about the universe telling her truths. What truths? About Mulder, about the conspiracy they uncovered, about what was done to her? What enlightenment could she ever possibly hope to find in this course? All she knew was that every hope she had of uncovering any truths, let alone bring justice to any of them, was tied up in the lost DAT tape and in the investigative capabilities of Skinner and the team reviewing the case. And frankly, she realized, she didn't put much stock in that. Somehow she had a feeling that when push came to shove, it would be her ass out the door, taking the blame for the debacle of this case, and there was very little she would be able to do about it.

Into the turmoil of her thoughts, the shrill ringing of her doorbell rang, breaking the silence of her apartment. It startled her enough to sit bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding as for a moment hope sprang up that beyond some miracle, Mulder had returned. Grabbing her robe and stuffing her raw feet into her slippers, she practically ran to her door, flipping on the light of her living room and looking through the peephole, fully expecting to see her partner's lanky form leaning against the door. She was perplexed and disappointed to see Frohike's short, round face glancing back at her through thick, bottle-bottom glasses. Not that she minded the strange, irascible man no matter how he had creeped her out at first, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out what he was doing there at 2 AM in the morning, with what looked like a whiskey bottle in hand.

Scully quickly unlocked the door, trying to hide the worst of her disappointment as she opened the door wide. "Frohike?"

"I know, it's late but I heard the news." He teetered slightly as he looked down at the sloshing bottle in his hand. She could see Frohike's face flush slightly as he canted sideways just a little. "Maybe I should go. Pardon my presumptuousness."

"How much have you had to drink? " A lot, she thought, as he held up the nearly empty bottle. Had it been full when he started to drink?

"Do you recycle?" He hiccuped.

She couldn't help but smile at the pathetic sight of Melvin Frohike depressively drunk. She stepped aside and let him in, pointing the way to the kitchen as she closed and locked the door. "I'll make you some coffee."

"You don't have to go to the trouble," he slurred slightly as he sat heavily in one of her chairs. "Just give me a few moments…"

"It's no trouble. I wasn't sleeping." She pulled her robe tightly about her and moved towards her coffee maker and the ground coffee beans she kept in the cabinet overhead. "How did you find out?"

"Feed we have through the FBI. Langley found it during his sweep tonight." Frohike set the bottle in the middle of her table and leaned his head against one rough hand. "You could have told us."

Guilt panged her at his hurt, forlorn expression. He was right, she should have been the one to tell them about their friend and she didn't. "I'm sorry, Frohike, I should have. I guess I haven't been in the right frame of mind since it happened either." She felt as if she had no more tears to shed in her body, but yet there always seemed to be more whenever she gave herself more than a few moments to think about it.

"Six years. You get to know a guy. Lots of people thought Fox Mulder was an asshole…and he was an asshole!" Frohike's free hand pounded the table as if for emphasis. "But he was a good man despite that. Never cowed to the man, no matter what, always stood up when no one else would. You can't find people with that sort of integrity and conviction anymore."

His passionate words reminded her painfully of what Skinner had said when she called him from the middle of the New Mexico desert. "Conviction didn't keep men from killing him."

"No, but he spoke truth to power, no matter what." Frohike insisted, wobbling lightly in his chair as he sat up. "Those piss ants at the FBI wouldn't know truth if it bit them in the ass."

For once, Scully thought solemnly, she couldn't agree more with Frohike.

"You knew Mulder six years? How did you meet?"

Frohike seemed taken aback by the question. "Meet? We didn't tell you this story?"

"Nope." Scully shook her head, not wanting to point out to him that she tried to spend as little time as possible with the Gunmen. She was still half afraid their crazy ideas might infect her.

"Some case he was working years ago, when Byers fell hard for a chick that Mulder was assigned to find. We sort of happened to meet after a fiasco involving asthma inhalers, a gunfight, and Mulder naked, ranting about aliens." Frohike's eyes stared off in the distance, drunkenly unfocused. "Frankly, I was surprised he even spoke to us after that. He wasn't exactly happy about it."

"Naked and ranting?" Scully paused as she filled the coffee maker, turning to stare at Frohike. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why and then thought better of it. "So, you all came together because of a case?"

"More or less. Well, Byers, Langley, and I got together after that case. Weird how that worked. The three of us couldn't stand each other and next thing we know we are starting a paper. I had the idea, of course, but Byers had the cash. We only kept Langley around for the layout work. He was on his high school newspaper staff."

"I see." Scully felt her mouth twitch despite herself. "And Mulder fell in with you as well?"

"No, he played it straight for a long time. He didn't get in touch with us again till after he opened the X-files." Frohike reached for his bottle, opened it, glanced at the bottom, thought better of it, and capped the bottle again.

"Why did he open the X-files?" It was a question she had longed to ask him before, but somehow he had always managed to sidestep it, road blocking her with his sister.

"Not sure, to be honest," Frohike hiccupped again as the coffee began to brew, filling the kitchen with its aroma. "He came to us after he opened them again. I thought it was just his sister. But there's was more than that for him. All of these cases were more than that for him." Frohike's glassy eyes were solemn.

"How so?" Scully reached for a clean mug out of her drainer.

"For Mulder, nothing was more important than the truth be heard, that people know about it at least and that is something that I completely respect." Frohike held up his bottle as if in silent salute, before setting it down again regretfully.

The truth that got him killed, Scully thought darkly, as she filled the mug with coffee and passed it to Frohike's waiting hand.

"He was a good friend. A redwood among sprouts."

Sprouts? Scully didn't call Frohike on his analogy as she poured herself a cup, and settled at the table alongside him.

"I guess this means he's passing you the torch." Frohike nodded knowingly, expectantly, as if she wasn't the skeptic, the one who question such things as believe in aliens, who didn't fight with Mulder tooth and nail about his theories.

"Uh, I'm afraid not. I'm soon to be out of a job." 

Frohike's disbelieving face flushed angrily. "Those sons-of-bitches. They're rigging the game!"

Scully hated to point it out to him that this entire episode was hardly a game, not a single bit of it, no matter what the Gunmen had thought when they had sent their friend to Mulder with the damned DAT tape to begin with. Hackers, playing at being anarchists, without giving a single thought to the consequences they might face with their ill gotten treasure, their truth.

"And like rats, they just scatter back into the woodpile." She sipped her coffee, thinking of the troopers who stopped her on the lonely highway in New Mexico. No evidence, nothing to link back Mulder's father's death to these men. Not only was her partner dead, but dead under a cloud of suspicion as well.

Frohike reached inside his jacket pocket, rummaging for a bit, before pulling out a newspaper article crumpled in his pocket. He handed it over to her. Glancing down, Scully read the headline. "Homicide Victim's Body Discovered at City Dump." She raised a questioning eye to Frohike.

"The rats that killed the cat." He nodded at the article, picking up his cup again.

"What's this?" She waved it in front of him in confusion.

"A news item about Kenneth Soona, a.k.a. 'The Thinker.' The man who hacked the MJ files, the ones he gave to Mulder."

Scully's heart lurched as she read through the article out loud quickly. "'Kenneth J. Soona was killed execution style in what appears to be a professional murder. His body found in the Trenton City landfill.' What's the date on this?" She scanned a fingernail down the article.

"This was the day before yesterday. This is after Mulder disappeared." Her mind began to race as she put the pieces together. "Could they be so stupid?"

"What do you mean?" Frohike blinked in puzzlement as she jumped up in excitement, her eyes blazing as she stared down at the confused man.

"I can guarantee that whoever murdered your friend, Kenneth Soona, was also the same person responsible for nearly killing me and for shooting Bill Mulder."

"How can you be sure?" Frohike drunkenly tried to piece together her train of thought, and failed.

"Why send out multiple hit squads? Whoever did this had to know this case intimately and was hunting down all possible people connected to it. And I can probably lay a bet on who it was who did the killing." She had a feeling that the rat involved in this game of cat and mouse was no other than Alex Krycek. "Krycek was the one poisoning Mulder's water, and I'd lay odds he was the one who killed Bill Mulder. If we can prove that his weapon was the same one that killed both Mulder's father and Kenneth Soona, that is a link. And if Soona was killed the day after Mulder….died." She stumbled slightly on the word. "Then it proves, without a doubt, that Mulder did not murder his father. How could he, when the gun used was involved in a crime a day after his death?"

"You think that this can prove it?" Frohike didn't sound so sure.

"I think it's enough for the FBI to investigate and perhaps give us our first real chance at finding some justice for all of this."

"I don't know, Scully." Frohike downed the last of his coffee. "You think you can walk into Skinner and give this to him and he'll seriously listen?"

To be honest, she wasn't terribly sure. She felt that despite his presence on the fence, Skinner wanted to do the right thing by the FBI and his agents, to find the truth, but in his own way. But she also knew there were others who controlled Skinner and his actions, those with much more influence than she possessed and they could easily bury this information and any hope of redemption Scully might have for Mulder's name and her career, as well as the truth.

"Thank you for the coffee." Frohike held out a hand for her, which she took gladly. Despite her earlier misgivings about him, she found herself rather liking him despite herself. Yes, he could be tactless and belligerent, but Frohike, in his own way, was painfully sweet and loyal to a fault, and his crush had at least moved from being strange and upsetting to affectionately cute.

"You know, if you ever need anything from us, all you have to do is ask. We'll help you out however we can." He pulled himself up from her table, wobbled, then turned, somewhat decisively, in the direction of her front door.

"Thanks, Frohike," she murmured, following him as he stumbled, a little hesitantly, to the door. "You sure you don't want me to call you a cab?"

"Nah, I'll call Langley and wake up his beauty rest." Frohike guffawed loudly as he stopped at the door. "And I hope you find those sons-of-bitches who did this. Kick their ass for me."

If it were only that simple, Scully sighed. "I'll try."

"You take care of you, too," Frohike warned ominously as he opened the door. "You never know, they took out Mulder, they may come for you."

Somehow, judging from the FBI's reaction, she highly doubted that. "I will."

Nodding a good night, he stumbled out the door and down the hallway. Scully watching him as he managed to get around the corner to the front door. If only things were that simple. At least she had something of a lead, some way of at least clearing Mulder's name and getting something of the truth out there. Perhaps, she thought to herself, she could salvage something out of all of this.


	125. Facing the Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully argues with Melissa.

What had they done to her?

Scully rattled the fragment of metal, no bigger than the head of a pin, in the small, glass vial she had stored it in. For nine months she had it in her neck and she hadn't even noticed. How many showers had she taken? How many times had she brushed her hair, put on her necklace or adjusted a collar on her blouse? Not once had she felt the lump that was there, the small rise of skin just over where the metal was lodged. No other metal detectors had noticed it, not in any of her plane flights across the country. Perhaps it was due to her status as an agent, she always carried a weapon on her. They had never noticed the pinprick of metal wedged in her soft tissue. What was it doing there and what was it meant for?

Melissa studied the tube as she rattled its. "You said you had it analyzed?"

"I pulled a favor with a friend of mine in the lab," Scully admitted, slowly. It hurt more that she cared to admit, the fact she couldn't even just walk into the labs at headquarters and use them when she needed. Her wounded pride aside, she had called a favor into one of her old students for the days before she had been assigned on the X-files. Agent Pendrell worked in the tech lab, and even he couldn't understand the metallic chip. He had asked his colleague to look at it for her. Much like Billy Miles and Duane Barry, she had an implant as well, and she had no memory of ever getting it, let alone when she received it, or how. And it was that fear of the unknown, that lingering question that terrified her to her bone. 

"I don't even know how long its been in there. I have absolutely no recollection of it being put there."

Melissa slid in to one of the chairs at her small table in her neat, well-ordered apartment. While Melissa might be the more flighty Scully sister, Ahab had raised her as well, and her home was as neat and tidy as her sister's was. Her face was solemn as she regarded the small bit of metal with revulsion. "That is frightening, Dana, this is very serious. You've got to find out what this is."

"I don't have access to the FBI labs," she responded half-heartedly. She supposed if she wanted to really pull strings she could speak to Pendrell again. But she didn't want to cause any more trouble for him than was needed, especially given the nature of what lengths she had already seen people go to in the last few days and weeks to hide the truth.

"No, I'm talking about access to your own memory." Not put off by Scully's non-committal answer and rolling of the eyes, Melissa pressed on. "I mean, obviously, you have buried this so deeply, you can't consciously recall it."

"Melissa!" Scully sighed by way of warning at her elder sister. She was prodding territory here she knew was tender and dangerous, one that in the nine months since her return from wherever she was taken, Scully had been loath to explore, to understand what she might have been repressing from that event. Even now, she felt the familiar sense of panic and revulsion as Melissa brought it up, her mind rejecting the need to probe into those areas, to try and break the barriers that her experience and dread didn't dare to go.

"I know someone who can help you," Melissa insisted, reaching for one of Scully's hands.

It was rare that Scully ever lost her temper anymore especially not to a family member. But these weeks and days had broken whatever reserve she had left and Melissa was ignoring all warning signs she had to lay off, to leave this one alone. "No!" She pounded her small fist on the table, glaring mutinously at her elder sister, backing her chair up and thrusting herself out. Why did Melissa have to keep pursuing and picking at this?

"What are you so afraid of, Dana?" Melissa was never one to mince words, even for those she loved. "You afraid you might actually learn something about yourself? I mean, you are...you are so shut off to the possibility there could be any other explanation except for your rigid scientific view of the world. It's like you've lost all touch with your own intuition."

Scully stopped her pacing and stared at her sister, her breath catching in her throat. Whether Melissa realized it or not, it was very much something Fox Mulder would have said to her once and perhaps did, several times. What had listening to her intuition gotten her in the last weeks? A lost partner, a lost job, and now Melissa was demanding that she follow that intuition into the very place she feared to go. What if the answers she sacrificed everything for on this case weren't just in that DAT file, but are hidden away in the vestiges of her own memory, locked inside by the things she feared to look at? She swallowed, scrubbing at her own face briefly, unsure of what to do…whom to listen to.

"You're carrying so much grief and fear that you can't see you. You've built up these walls around your true feelings and the memory of what really happened." Melissa rose from her table and crossed to her, her expression compassionate and pleading as she reached for Scully's hands. "Just do this for me, as your sister. Please?"

Scully wanted to refuse her, to say that Melissa needed to leave well enough alone, that she was fine, and she would look to the FBI finding the truth about what was going on. But Scully knew all of that would be lies on her part, lies she perpetrated because she was scared of whatever might lay in that void of memory of the time she was taken. Just what had they done to her? What was it in her memories that would reveal more to her than was even in that DAT tape and in those files? She shuddered to think of it.

Oh, Melissa, she thought as she met her sister's encouraging gaze. If only the world was made up of sunshine and daisies like she always seemed to believe it was. "Missy, what if what I discover on the other side is even more frightening than not knowing?"

"How could not knowing be even more frightening, Dana?" It was all so simple for her. It had been simple for Mulder too.

"Because the possibilities we are talking about here aren't just the chance that there are spirits or that the dead speak to us. It's the truth that our government perpetuates a lie that they perform on the public. That knowledge, Melissa, it's why they killed Mulder, to hide it."

"But not knowing, Dana, it's eating you apart. You can't let that fear rule your life."

Scully didn't know what to say to that. She was tired of how she felt now, tired of looking over her shoulder, wondering what they would do next, try next, say next. Perhaps if she found the truth now, it would quell that nagging terror and the frustration she felt with herself at not having done enough.

"I'll go," she whispered, as Melissa squeezed her hand in support. "I'll go, but I can't guarantee they'll help me find anything, Missy. I still can't remember much, even when I want to."

"I know, but it will be a start," her sister assured her, smiling proudly. "I'll get you his card, he's a wonderful guy, and I know he'll do everything he can to make this whole process go well for you."

Could he? Scully doubted that. Somehow whatever it was that remained hidden in her memory, she thought to herself, there was a reason it stayed hidden there, and a part of her was terrified at the prospect of letting whatever it was out. Still, she accepted her sister's card with a smile at least, and a vague promise she would look into this Dr. Pomerantz, for her sister, because God knew, she wasn't so sure she wanted to do this for herself.


	126. Gut Instinct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully follows her gut.

Sleep was a long time in coming to Scully, as it had been most days since Mulder's death. Her visit to Dr. Pomerantz, Skinner's denial he had been to her apartment that day, the lingering memories of men doing things to her, of alarms and fears for her safety, they all swirled in her memory, till they muddled one into the other, none making any more sense than when she had laid down that evening to even attempt sleep.

What was it she was too afraid to remember? Did it have anything to do with what may or may not been on that now missing DAT tape? And why did Skinner lie to her about being at her apartment? Was he there, searching for the tape himself? Did someone else hold his strings now? Was he now working for those very men who had murdered her partner and his father, who had left the metallic chip in her neck? Was Skinner now a part of the circle of secrecy and lies that seemed to enshroud Scully, cutting her off from everyone and everything?

If and when she fell asleep, Scully couldn't say. She knew she was in a place filled with darkness, broken only by the pinprick of stars all around her. It was peaceful, yes, and still. It was the place she had visited during her appointment with Dr. Pomerantz, the quiet, safe space, far away from the tumultuous memories that she had tried so hard to avoid in her session. She relaxed into the darkness, she sank into it, enjoying the comfort and safety that she found here. It took her several long moments to realize, as she breathed in softly, that she was not alone here. There was someone else here, someone who she hadn't expected to see again ever.

"Mulder!" She gasped, his lean, angular face melting into the darkness even before she could glimpse his familiar smile. What was he doing here? Was he dead? Was he alive? Was she dreaming this? She wanted to ask him, but his soft monotone broke the stillness, murmuring to her quietly in the night that shrouded them both.

"I have been on the bridge that spans two worlds, the link between all souls by which we cross into our own true nature. You were here today, looking for truth that was taken from you, a truth that was never to be spoken, but which now binds us together in dangerous purpose. I have returned from the dead to continue with you, but I fear that this danger is now close at hand and that I may be too late."

Danger? Her heart raced as she glanced about her in the star-spangled night. What danger? What did he mean? Was this a warning, a vision of what was to come, or merely a fear born out of what they both knew from the information and truths they had gleaned? Her mind pounded as she woke, startled in her bed, gasping for air as she sat up in bed, as if looking around for her missing partner.

Alive! Fox Mulder was alive! He was in her dream, speaking to her! She knew it was him and not a vision or a memory, it was really Mulder, her partner, alive and speaking to her, sending her a message…of what? Warning her of danger? She tried to recall. What sort of danger was she in? Had he said? She didn't think so.

He was alive! She laughed to herself, running her fingers through her sweat-damp hair. Logic told her that she was mad, that it was only a dream, more than likely fueled by her own fear, confusion, and anger, not to mention her deep, seated desire for Mulder to mysteriously appear again, hale and whole, back from the dead. She recognized she wanted that, more than anything, to know that despite it all he wasn't dead. If she had any sense in her, she would take her dream for just that, a dream, wishful thinking born out of a consciousness overworked with the events of the recent days.

Her fingers rose around her throat, fingering the cross that lay just at her collarbone. Melissa's words about her own intuition rang in her ears. As a scientist she had been drilled in the idea that Aristotelian thought and scientific empiricism could understand the world. Everything could be explained by looking at it, studying it, and following one logical step after another to its final conclusion, ruling out all other possibilities. And yet, as a scientist, she knew that there were always other factors, random results that appeared that had no reason to be there, usually explained away as anomalies, things outside of the range of explanation, bad data, better ignored and forgotten than truly taken seriously. There was no room for intuition in science, because intuition was not logical, it had no basis in explanation, in reality. There was nothing to substantiate a gut feeling. And yet that intuition that gut feeling was what led mankind to some of its great discoveries and most honest truths. She fingered the cross against her skin softly. What was faith, really, than humanity's intuition, their belief that there was something bigger and greater in this universe than themselves, that their senses and logic couldn't place. Faith was believing when common sense told you not to. When had she stopped listening to that faith?

Rising from her bed, Scully threw back her covers, and shuffled into her living room, blinking blindly against the light she flipped on as she reached for her computer. She waited impatiently as it booted up, and the modem screeched into life. When her Internet browser had finally booted up, she began her search of New Mexico area hospitals that might have a John Doe matching the description of her partner. After several hopeful minutes, she turned up nothing. Perhaps plane flights? She thought about looking up airline manifests, but without her badge number, she would be unable to access anything to search for a George Hale or a Fox Mulder. Perhaps car rentals? But then she would run into the same problem. Without her clearance as an FBI agent she was stuck, powerless to find the proof that he was alive.

Did she need proof; a small voice in the back of her mind asked her? Wasn't it just enough to believe that he was all right, that he would come home? Wasn't that the meaning of faith, of listening to ones intuition? She stared blankly at her computer screen, at the blinking cursor. She believed, somehow, that Mulder was all right, that he would come back to the people who cared most about him. Sadly, she realized, that pretty much boiled down to herself, the Gunmen, and his mother. Poor Teena, alone in Massachusetts dealing with the dual blows of the loss of a former husband and their last, remaining child. Scully was certain that all the FBI told Teena Mulder was that her son was missing, presumed dead, and an investigation was pending into the events surrounding his disappearance. A mad idea crossed her mind, one that her logical self chastised her for even considering, but it was the right thing, the good thing, and the thing she felt she must do.

So much for following your intuition, she smiled softly as she typed in Teena Mulder's name into the computer, hoping to pull up her address in Greenwich, Connecticut. Rather than an address, however, she pulled up an obituary for her ex-husband, Bill Mulder. Scully's heart twinged for the briefest of moments as she remembered the sad man who had visited her in Alaska. Clicking the link, she thoughtfully scanned the article, curious to see what it would say about his life and death. Knowing what she did now about Bill Mulder, about what he was involved in, and the secrets that he kept, how would posterity portray this man who felt so sad and defeated at the end of his life. His obituary was hardly enlightening, stating only that he died and was survived by his son, Fox. Hope sprang anew in her mind as she scanned to the end of the article. Services were being held at the Garden of Reflection, at the Parkway Cemetery in Boston. She glanced at the clock in the corner of her screen. It was 4 AM. The services were at 1 PM. If she got ready now, she could probably make a flight to Boston, perhaps even drive if she didn't want to deal with flying stand-by. Something in her warmed to this idea, despite the fact that Teena barely knew Scully. They had met once, briefly. But somehow, she felt it was the smart decision, to go up there and pay her respects to the gentlemen that she had gotten to know ever so briefly several months ago and to tell Mulder's mother she knew that it would all work out.

This was mad. She was crazy. Perhaps after all the bad decisions she had made in the last few days, it was the smartest, best decision to date. Something inside told her this was right and for once she was following Melissa's advice and going with her gut instinct. If Mulder was alive, she hoped he would approve.


	127. A Mexican Standoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully faces Skinner in a standoff.

The well-dressed British man from Bill Mulder's funeral had warned Scully that someone would try to attack her in her own home. How could she have forgotten so quickly? She had just told her sister she could come over, blithely ignoring the warning about her own well being. Now her sister was coming to her apartment and Scully was left sitting there, alone, a perfect target for anyone coming to kill her. As much as she wanted to scoff at the strangers warnings, something about his reason for telling her made her listen. Her life could be in danger.

So much for following her intuition, she thought to herself as she reached for her phone again, hoping the Melissa hadn't done what she normally did, grabbed her purse and ran for the door. On the other end she could hear the ringing, as Missy's phone went straight to her answering machine. Damn it!

"Missy, it's me. Please pick up." she held her breath, hoping against hope she was wrong and Melissa was still there, listening to this. "Missy? Missy, pick up! I'm coming over to your place instead. I'll look for you on the way. Bye."

Damn, damn, damn, she swore as she moved to rush out the door herself, hoping to waylay her sister along the way. As her fingers reached her doorknob, she stopped, thoughtful. Turning around, she went to one of her decorative tables, pulling out the drawer where she kept an extra firearm, registered to her personally rather than the FBI. Settling it in the familiar spot her service weapon sat, she grabbed the purse she had just dropped as she came inside and rushed out the door to her car. Mentally mapping out the streets between her sister's apartment and her own, she wondered which route her sister was most likely to take, and if there was a way she could possibly stop her before getting to her in Georgetown. She wished, not for the first time, Missy carried a cell phone with her as she moved down the sidewalk to where her car was parked out front. She barely registered the car that squealed to a halt beside her, before she turned, startled by the large, luxury sedan, as her boss reached across its front seats and threw open the passengers side door. Only his glasses were visible in the darkness inside.

"Scully, get in the car. I need to talk to you. It's very important."

Scully stared at him through his open door, shocked the he was even there let alone ordering her to get into his car. Something about this all struck her as wrong, very, very wrong. "I was just going over to my sister's." Stopping Melissa was paramount to her at the moment, unless Skinner knew exactly what was going on in her apartment and had come himself to stop it or perhaps to carry it out. How could she be sure?

"I'll drop you by there, right now, I need for you to come with me." He barked his request as more of an order, something he expected her to follow as a subordinate. It all struck her as vaguely suspicious. Why would he come out here not once, but twice, and order her into his car, conveniently after the warning she had received that day regarding a possible threat on her life.

"Where are we going?" She stepped cautiously to the car, not willing to go along with him just yet, but fearing the consequences if she made a scene.

"To a place where we can talk," he snapped, insistent. They were at an impasse. She didn't trust him one bit. Not after the way he disregarded the evidence she had presented, and especially not after he had lied about being at her apartment the other day. She wasn't an idiot and she knew there were others who pulled Skinner's strings, people who had from beginning to end engineered this entire scenario. He could very easily take her somewhere quiet, kill her, and leave her there, explaining away her death as relating back to some case she was involved in. But that wasn't what the British man at Bill Mulder's funeral had said about how they would go about killing her. No, their methods would be more nefarious than that. It wouldn't be something so terribly obvious. Skinner was in too high of a position for them to be comfortable with him performing the act himself. Still…

Logic told her that she would be crazy to step in that car at that moment. Instinct told her there was something coming here, something she desperately needed to understand. So far, instinct had led her right, up to this moment. She prayed Missy and her words on the subject weren't wrong. She slowly stepped into her boss's car, closing the heavy door behind her, and buckling in.

Skinner nodded quietly and turned towards the road, pulling away from the curb.

"Why did you come here, sir?" She ventured the first words, watching him sideways as he turned at the corner down the way from her apartment.

"Like I said, to talk."

"And you couldn't come up to my apartment to do that?" Her suspicions were raised again. "Clearly you thought nothing of it the other day when you stopped by."

Skinner remained curiously silent as she brought back that point. She watched one of the muscles in his hard jaw tick nervously.

"I've helped you out in the past, Agent Scully, at great personal risk. Why would you start questioning me now?"

"Because, sir, in the past there was no one with a cigarette to your back giving you orders." She hit home with him as his dark eyes lit up with panic briefly, sliding sideways to stare at her, before turning back to the road.

"Contrary to what you may believe, Scully, I've had nothing but your best interest at heart." His hands tightening on the wheel. "I wouldn't have worked my ass off to give you and Mulder back the X-files and to get you on it if I didn't believe in the work you were doing. But everyone takes orders from someone and even my ass has to walk the line."

"I understand that, sir, I just wonder where personal interest ends and orders begin." She wasn't stupid. And she wasn't taking any chances with her boss either. A creeping dread began to settle in the pit of her stomach. Had she made the wrong choice, going with him? "Where are we going, sir, might I ask?"

"The only place I could think of where they won't look. Mulder's apartment."

Her guard rose immediate at those words, as she pushed her back into the leather seat, feeling the gun press into her hip. "I would think that was the least secure place to go to, given that there are those who would love to catch Mulder at something."

"I'm taking a chance that since he's dead, no one is watching it," Skinner replied, a hint of regret in his tone. "You have to know, Scully, I am sorry for his loss."

"I can tell." Her tone was coldly dry. "You have certainly pursued every lead you could find on the men who murdered him and his father."

His jaw tightened so hard, it seemed almost made of granite. "Damn it, Scully, neither of you followed any procedure or protocol with this case. The minute Mulder received that document you should have come to me about it."

"Why? So you could bust our asses and close us down for good?" Now she was beginning to sound like Mulder, querulous and challenging.

"No," he sighed angrily. "So I could figure out how to cover for you both, instead of learning about it second hand from people who would rather kill you than even give you the opportunity."

"So, you went with the side that got to you first." She glared in disgust. Mulder was right. When challenged what side did Skinner fall down on? Was it truly their own or was he working another agenda? The British gentleman's warning rang in her ears. Could Skinner really be taking her out to Mulder's apartment to kill her? Or was her fevered imagination, fueled by the events of the week and the stranger's advice getting the better of her. 

"What is so secret you can't discuss it with me here, sir?"

The stranger's words from the funeral rang in her mind clearly. "He or she will be someone close to you. Someone you trust. They'll arrange a meeting or come to your house unexpectedly."

Skinner had nothing to say and no reason to call up a meeting for her. And he was starting to look more and more likely as the person sent to do her harm. Her mouthed dried as the crossed the Potomac River into Virginia and drove closer to Mulder's spartan apartment. She remained silent as she watched him park his large car on the street, glancing at Mulder's sedan still parked quietly in its spot. Her heart lurched as she thought of her dream the night before, Mulder speaking to her of his return. Would he truly return or was it all wishful thinking? If he truly was to return, she thought as fear spiked through her chest, he better make it quick, before she made the biggest mistake of her life.

She climbed out of Skinner's massive car, feeling for the pistol under her jacket. She couldn't allow Skinner to have the upper hand in this. If she did, she would be dead. Swallowing against the terror rising in her throat, she followed her boss across the street, and slipped inside the front door behind a woman carrying in her groceries. She didn't comment on the presence of Skinner and Scully, and neither of them bothered to look at her as they took the elevator up to the fourth floor. The silence rang heavily between them as Scully's blood roared in her ears. She kept her expression even as she pulled out the ring of keys she kept in her purse, and found the one she had marked with tape, the one with Mulder's name on it. She had been here just the evening before, feeding Mulder's fish. Still, even as she opened the door there was an air of mustiness, a certain lack of fresh air, the telling features that no one had been home and living here for days.

Scully glanced at Skinner. "After you."

The taller, broader man stepped into the apartment. She watched him go, her mind screaming that this was madness. What she was prepared to do would ruin her career. But she was tired of being jerked around, held at bay by the whims of men who she had done nothing to and who seemed more than willing to use her as a pawn in their schemes. Enough was enough. Before Skinner could do anything to her, she would find the truth out for herself.

In one fluid motion she had her weapon out and cocked, aimed dead in the center of Skinner's broad back. He froze at the sound, turning his head ever so slightly to glance, disbelieving, back at her.

"Eyes forward," she ordered. "Put your hands where I can see them. Don't turn around or I'll blow your head off." She stepped in through Mulder's doorway, keeping her gun trained exactly on her boss's back, as she flipped on the lights in Mulder's apartment. "Don't think I won't do it, you son-of-a-bitch."

"No, I believe you." Skinner replied, far from patronizing, but falling automatically into the FBI mode for handling dangerous people with weapons. "Just stay cool. I'm with you."

"Take two steps forward," she ordered, forcing him ahead enough so she could comfortably close the door without lowering her aim. "Now move slowly towards the couch."

Skinner nodded, nearly imperceptibly as she moved into the darkness of Mulder's living room, to the couch that was just barely visible in the light. Scully followed him, slowly, her breath coming in short, hard gasps as fear threatened to turn her insides to water. What she was doing now was madness. It was unthinkable. Her cool, calm, logical self was howling at her for what she was doing now. Yet the stranger's warning still rang loudly in her ears - she would be set up, asked to a meeting, and then killed.

Would Skinner be the one to kill her?

"Turn around and sit down on your hands," she barked, throwing her purse to the table as she concentrated her gun on Skinner's chest. He did, as she asked but not happily.

"Are you going to let me tell you why I'm here?" Skinner watched her with wary calculation, as if she were the one being unreasonable in this situation. And perhaps she was. Scully couldn't tell, not after the weeks she had of late.

"I know why you're here," she snarled furiously. "I want to know who sent you. Whose errand boy you are."

Much to her surprise, Skinner looked honestly confused. "No one sent me."

Somehow, Scully doubted that. She sat slowly across from Skinner on the love seat opposite Mulder's couch, still aiming in the middle of his chest. "You've got the rest of your life to give me answers," she drawled slowly, her face hard as Skinner's eyes moved to the rock solid muzzle of her gun.

"How high does it go, Skinner? Who's pulling the strings?" She barked, her anger, fear, and frustration finally getting the best of her, all pretense of the calm, rational Agent Scully gone.

Skinner shook his head, eyes glittering first at her weapon, then up at her. "You can kill me, Scully, but you'll only be doing their work for them. Forget about your job and family. You'll spend the rest of your life behind bars. There isn't a federal judge that they couldn't persuade."

"What's the alternative? Let you kill me now?" Her voice sounded harsh in her ears, terror cutting through the room. Skinner's eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed frames, as if he had no idea what she was talking about or why she was shrieking like a mad woman with a gun on her employer. And maybe, her rational side finally asserted itself, he might not have an idea. He might just have come here as he said, just to talk.

"I didn't come here to kill you. I came here to give you something." He paused heavily. "I've got the digital tape."

The DAT tape, the one that he had expressly told her to produce. The one he had been searching her apartment for, the one that he threatened her career over. He had it this entire time? "You're lying."

"I've got it in my pocket. I took it out of Mulder's desk."

The first place she had looked when she had arrived back from New Mexico. He had it the entire time? All this fear, all this worry about what would happen to her without the proof, to her career, to Mulder's legacy, all in his hands? What was the bullshit then about producing the tape? Why had he made the angry accusation that she was simply trying to save her reputation, when he knew the truth the entire time? Why would he make such a horrific demand of her when he already had the proof in his hands?

Steps sounded outside of Mulder's apartment door. They weren't heavy steps, but they stopped, the shadows playing in the faint light that crept in from underneath and danced across the dark wood of the front area. Scully turned, glancing in the direction, her mind screaming that this was the moment. This could be the attempt Skinner had arranged, and everything for the rest of her life depended on what she would do in those fleeting seconds.

Apparently, she realized with painful dread, she had already lost, as Skinner was much quicker than even she anticipated. His weapon was out as well, and pointing back directly at her.

"Drop your weapon! Put it down, Scully," Skinner shouted, face livid.

"No way," she yelled back. The ridiculousness of this situation wasn't lost of on her. It was a classic showdown, she and her boss, with hell just on the other side of the doorway.

This was madness! All of this was madness.

"I said put it down," Skinner insisted, bellowing.

"I said no," she repeated without backing down. "You're setting me up!" She could sense it, waiting on the other side of the door.

"I'm trying to help you!"

"Then put down your weapon and sit down," she demanded.

"Not a chance," he snapped back, shaking his balding head.

"You said you weren't here to kill me, Skinner, now prove it." If he wasn't here to kill her, who was it on the other side of the door?

"I didn't come here to have a gun shoved in my face either."

"Damn it, Skinner!" Her nerves were already to the breaking point, tired of waiting, tired of the other shoe to drop, terrified that he would just kill her where she stood. Before either of them could act, practically as the words left her lips, the front door burst in violently. For a moment, she thought, this was the end, until she realized the man with the gun trained on her boss was Mulder. And then all thoughts left her completely, to stunned to even think. He was alive. He had come here after her and as usual, only in the knick of time. She wanted to cry, she wanted to rush him and hug him, to make sure he was physically there and that she wasn't dead.

It couldn't be a dream, she realized, unless Skinner was sharing the dream too. His astonishment was only slightly less than her own. But he recovered faster and pointed his weapon now on Mulder, who didn't seem to flinch.

"Drop your weapon," Mulder demanded. When Skinner refused, his hazel-green eyes flashed. "I said…"

"Back off," Skinner growled angrily, glancing accusingly at Scully.

"I said put it down," Mulder repeated harshly, eyes never wavering from Skinner.

"What the hell is this? What are you pulling here?" Skinner's irate question was directed at her, but Scully didn't care. Mulder was alive and breathing, and had returned relatively in one piece. And frankly her suddenly rattled brain couldn't ask for anything more at the moment.

"You okay, Scully?" Mulder shot her a sideways glance as he moved closer to the still defensive Skinner.

"Yeah," she managed to gasp, the only sound she could manage to put together. She was fairly certain she only had a minimal grasp on the English language.

"Get his gun," Mulder instructed, nodding towards Skinner's weapon. Obediently she held out her hand to the reluctant Assistant Director.

"Give her the gun," Mulder ordered. When Skinner hesitated, he pressed forward, moving his aim from Skinner's chest to his face. "Give it to her!"

Skinner slowly did as he was asked, turning the gun butt towards Scully and handing it to her slowly. Only then did Mulder finally lower his weapon and look between the two of them, as if they were errant schoolchildren on the playground caught in the middle of a schoolyard fight.

"Now, I want an explanation," he murmured, ignoring Scully's still trained weapon, directed straight on their employer. Whether he felt it was necessary or not was besides the point, and he didn't seem to feel the need to call her on it. Somehow, crazily, it made her happy to know that in the middle of as insane a situation as this, Mulder's first instinct was to side with her rather than their superior officer.

Skinner looked to her first, dark eyebrows raised, as if he was asking the same question himself. Glancing between her partner and her boss, Scully realized that whatever plan Skinner might have had to harm her, he couldn't get very far with Mulder standing right there. "I was warned that somebody would kill me." She met Skinner's dark eyes directly. "Someone I trusted."

No sooner than she said it than the horrible mistake she had been about to make became all together quite clear. Skinner's expression went through several stages of realization, as it finally dawned on him her erratic behavior, her fear, and the ridiculous Mexican standoff they found themselves in. He slowly nodded, his eyes shifting from her to Mulder warily.

"I'm going to reach into my coat pocket and end this charade, all right?" His hand moved ever so slowly to his long, over coat pocket. Scully tensed, but Mulder nodded, watching with careful expectation. Skinner's hand disappeared for the briefest of seconds before removing the small, digital tape, holding it up between blunt fingers.

"I assume you both know what this is?" His sharp eyes pierced through Scully as relief and shame suddenly filling her as for a moment her knees felt weak beneath her. "Now, I want an explanation."

Scully looked to Mulder, unsure what to say in this moment. He was alive and she had nearly killed her boss for nothing more than a vague warning from a well-spoken stranger at a funeral. Trust no one, indeed. She felt herself shake as she lowered her weapon. What had she nearly done?

"Your cigarette-smoking friend killed my father for that tape and then he killed me," Mulder replied matter-of-factly.

Killed him? He was standing there before them. Skinner exchanged a confused look with Scully before staring at Mulder up and down, as if making sure it really was him standing there in front of them. "What are you talking about?

"I was a dead man and now I'm back."

Whether Skinner wanted to comment on that statement or not, he ignored it. "What is on this tape?"

Scully nervously glanced sideways at Mulder, unsure of whether or not they should reveal to even Skinner the truth of what they found on this tape. Perhaps, she realized, if they had been honest with him from the beginning none of this would have ever happened, and it wouldn't have spiraled as completely out of hand as it did. But then again Skinner hadn't exactly gone out of his way to prove himself a paragon of trust either, and she still couldn't be sure what side of the fence he was playing on.

But it was Mulder who answered, whatever her reservations on the matter might be. "Defense department files that weren't supposed to exist. The truth about our government's involvement in a global conspiracy of silence about the existence of extraterrestrial life." He nodded at the tape in Skinner's hands, as the other man stared at it suddenly, as if it had turned into an alien.

Not that Scully was sure it was really the truth of alien life, only that it was a government program to engineer a virus. But she didn't bother arguing with or correcting Mulder as she held her hand out to Skinner. "Give me the tape." After all of this, after his lying to her about even having it, she didn't think she could trust the man to keep a hold of it and keep it safe.

"Uh-uh, this tape stays with me." Skinner shook his balding head vehemently, unflinching, even as Mulder brought his weapon up again in one, smooth action.

"Give her the tape," Mulder intoned darkly.

Skinner wouldn't back down. "If what you say is true, the information on this tape is valuable enough to kill for. Then it's the only leverage we've got to bring these men to justice. It's not going to do us any good if it falls back into their hands!"

Since when, Scully wondered privately, had this become "we" in the sense of Skinner? He was the one who had demanded she bring him the tape in the first place, the so-called, "smoking gun". What in the world possessed him not to help them, when clearly it hadn't been particularly in his best interest to do so? She turned to Mulder, her eyes meeting his in silent question. Should they trust him? Could they trust him?

Mulder's responding gaze seemed to say that they had little choice. Unhappily he nodded to Skinner, glancing at the tape in their superior's hand. "Then you better make sure it doesn't." He lowered his weapon.

"Come on, Scully," he murmured softly. "Let's go."

For a moment her brain blanked horribly. Not fifteen minutes ago, Mulder was missing, presumed dead, and Skinner was trying to kill her. The adrenaline that had coursed through her veins still left a bitter taste in her mouth. "Where," she asked stupidly as he turned towards his door.

"There are truths out there that aren't on that tape," he called back vaguely as she stared at him for long, confused moments. He may have returned to her, but was just as maddeningly esoteric as ever. She turned to Skinner, who watched her with something between wariness and anger. She wanted to be apologetic to the man, to say she was sorry for acting like a crazed lunatic in his presence, but somehow she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. He had lied to her about not knowing where the tape was, in demanding it from her when he had it the whole time, and frankly, it didn't much matter to her if he had done it for show. The people he had been showing off to wanted her dead and were willing to go to any lengths to kill her and Mulder for the information found on that DAT tape.

What was it Mulder had said months ago? When he was pressed to do it, could they be sure what side Skinner truly ever fell on? She glared hard at Skinner, holding out his weapon and setting it on Mulder's desk between them. Without a word she turned from him and followed Mulder out of the door, down the hallway, where he stood by his elevator, looking for all the world hail, healthy, and whole.

He was alive, she marveled. She knew he was alive, her instinct had told her so. She could have cried with relief, but instead chose to stare up at him in marvel, as if he were the second coming of Jesus. God, she was happy to see him, she realized, giddy, thrilled, ecstatic. If circumstances were different, perhaps she would throw her arms around him now, hold on tight and not let go, just to reassure herself that Mulder was alive, that he was okay, and he had come back, just as he promised in her dream.

His expression were bemused as she continued to stare at him, causing her to duck her head and smile softly, a flush creeping up her pale skin. What did one say to ones partner when it was assumed they were dead not more than a day ago? Why was there now this horrible awkwardness between them, as Mulder shifted nervously in front of her? How could she possibly express to him what this meant to her or the vision she had about his returning? How much had changed in the days since he was gone, the experiences she had? Would he laugh at her?

"Scully, whatever you are going to say..."

"I went to your father's funeral," she blurted, her eyes flying up to his. "I told your mother that you were going to be okay." He looked less surprised by the admission than the fact she was confessing to it, curiously smiling down at her as the elevator doors opened.

"How did you know," he wondered aloud.

She shrugged. How did she explain these types of things. "I just knew," she said, her skin burning with embarrassment now. Silently, she moved past him, into the elevator as he followed. The doors closed in front of them.

"Just knew? As in intuition?" Mulder's tone was light and teasing. "I'm dead for a few days and suddenly Dana Scully turns into a whole different person?"

"Not wholly different," she grumbled as the elevator opened again, depositing them on the ground floor. "I…I've been forced to face things, Mulder, while you were gone. Things I didn't want to face, wasn't ready to face." The chip she found in her neck, the vague memories dredged up from her visit to Dr. Pomerantz, these all flashed in her memory as he held open the front door of his apartment for her. "There are things I will need to tell you about, things I discovered about what was done to me."

Mulder slowed and stopped on his way to the street, staring at her wordlessly for long, impenetrable moments. She fidgeted as he watched her, unable to capture what it was he was thinking in his normally open expression. He was shutting her out. Why?

"I've discovered things, Scully," he murmured softly. "Things about my father and the role he might have played in this project." Mulder finally said, his voice a soft, sad sigh. "Things that he might have been responsible for, about you, about Samantha, and I think now, more than ever, we are closer to the truth on all of this. Of everything that was going on and everything that happened to you." 

He paused briefly, staring off into the distance down his street, cars passing by in a quiet hiss of summer traffic. "I can't guarantee that the steps I take from here on are safe ones, Scully. They could put you at even more risk. And you've already had to bear so much, if you want to back out now…."

Again with this backing out, of this protection? Her expression flashing angrily as she crossed her arms in front of her. When would Fox Mulder learn he couldn't protect her forever? Hell, he died for a few days and she was nearly killed just this evening. "The safest, best place for me to be at, Mulder, is right with you. And I'm not going to go anywhere else." She scowled in irritation at him as he tried to give her one of his pleading looks. "They put a chip in me, Mulder, a device, in my neck." 

She realized she had left her purse with the chip still up in his apartment. "They tagged me as…as if I were cattle. And I don't remember any of it, except rooms, and tests. I don't remember a thing. I don't know why they did it." Her fingers crept, helplessly, to the spot on her neck. "Till I discover why it is they did this, what it is they did to me, I can't stop, and I won't stop. I want to find out why."

Whether he was horrified to hear her story about the chip, or thankful she refused to sit back and let him do all of the work, she couldn't tell. He inclined his head finally, almost as an act of submission as he turned towards the street where both of their cars sat. "Whose car do we get to take?"

"Yours," she replied quietly, as he glanced over at her in surprise. "I'm sick to death of driving."

"Good thing I got to keep my keep my keys in the afterlife," he chuckled, the first real smile she had seen thus far forming on his full lips as he pulled out the chain from his pocket. "Come on, I have some family photos I need the Gunmen to look at for me."

"Family photos? What for?"

"I think my father's business associates were more than just drunken, fat guys hanging around the barbecue when I was a kid," Mulder intoned dryly, without any real clarity. Scully wanted to press him, but decided for now she could wait. Her mind and heart were too full to ask. Frankly, she just wanted to take these moments and appreciate the fact that he was back, he was all right, and he wasn't dead.

"I'm glad you are alive, Mulder," she grinned at him foolishly, not knowing what else to say. "I'm glad I was right about that."

He laughed softly, his eyes shining for the briefest of moments. "I am too, Scully…me too."


	128. Meant For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully is blindsided by news of her sister.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

The phrase had always had a vague meaning to Scully, one of those sorts of empty sentences she always heard priests and ministers say to their congregations as some sort of source of twisted comfort, a way to shrug off the great mysteries of the universe with a useless platitude that may or may not have some greater meaning. Usually it was uttered after someone had lost a job, or a home, or perhaps a pet. And occasionally she would hear it when spoken of a loved one, as the grieving family members tried to cope with the loss of someone taken far sooner than anyone expected. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. For her, the Lord had given her back Mulder, back from the dead where she thought he had resided, and returned him to work by her side, to help her find the answers to what had exactly happened to her. What she didn't understand was that in getting him back, the Lord would take away Melissa, her sister.

The bastards had shot her sister.

Without a word she turned from Frohike's sympathy and Mulder's stricken gaze towards the door of the Gunmen's office, rushing down the stairs without heed to the fact that Mulder was the one who drove them there. All she knew was that she had to get to her sister, as quickly as possible, she had to get to Missy's side, to see what was wrong, if there was anything she could do.

"Scully!" Mulder's voice called down to her, but she refused to listen. Her steps pounded loudly on the metal staircase.

"Scully, wait!" He called again, his longer legs were hampered on the shorter steps as she rushed to his car. "Scully! Scully, wait! Scully!"

His fingers reached for her shoulder, spinning her around to face him.

"I have to go there, Mulder," she replied automatically, without even really looking at him.

"You can't go," he insisted. Anger welled inside of her as she glared up at him, her heart breaking.

"That bullet was meant for me!" Tears stung her eyes as she fought for every inch of control she could manage. If this were his sister, if this were Samantha, he wouldn't think twice about rushing to her side.

"If they're trying to kill you, that's the first place they're going to look!" Mulder's tone asked her to see reason. And what reason was there in this? This was her sister, her elder sister, who had done nothing to anyone. She was in critical condition in some hospital when it should be her. She had cheated death once. She hadn't cheated it for Melissa to die in her stead.

"Those bastards," she whispered, wanting desperately to scream, to hit something, to do anything other than stand there, in front of Mulder, feeling helpless and desperate. Missy was hurt, she could be dying, and it was all her fault. She should never have gotten into Skinner's car, she should have headed of Melissa, stopped her from coming. It was all her fault.

"We're going to call someone I think can help." Mulder pulled out one of the pictures of his father from his coat pocket. In it was the gathering of men, the very men who had created this conspiracy, and the one that had captured her and had now hurt her sister. "The only thing you can do for her right now is try to crucify them."

"I don't want to crucify them, Mulder," Scully whispered mournfully, her eyes brimming with tears she couldn't check anymore. "I want this to stop. I want to know why this is happening to me, to us, and I want this to stop." She met his feverish bright eyes, filled with righteous indignation all his own. "Melissa wasn't involved in this. She went to my apartment to check on me. She didn't deserve this."

"I know," he responded softly, his gaze softening with empathy and understanding as he reached a thumb up to her chin to wipe away one stray tear as it fell. It was a tender gesture, one that Scully took some small comfort as whatever resolve and strength she had crumbled finally under Mulder's sympathetic gaze. The fear for her sister, her awe at seeing Mulder's return, and all the absolute terror she had been forced to deal with all evening all hit her at that moment, and she didn't really have the strength to stop it. Without a word, without her even having to ask, he pulled her into his arms and held her as she sobbed quietly into the shoulder she hadn't shot just the week before.

He sighed softly into her hair as he stroked it gently where the top of her head nestled on his chest. "Without that DAT tape, we have nothing to protect us, nothing we can bargain with to end this. We have no evidence, but we still know the truth, and they are afraid of that. They will stop at nothing to kill us both." 

He pulled away from her, one hand lighting on her shoulder as he tipped her chin up enough to look up at him. "We need to find out what these men know, to find the evidence of the truth. It's the only way of finding justice in any of this, for your sister, for my father. We need to get the truth out there and make those fucking bastards pay for what they've done, not just to us, but thousands of others."

Somehow at the moment she couldn't make herself feel the need to help the thousands of others, just the one. She rubbed furiously at her streaming eyes with the backs of her hand, backing out of Mulder's gentle grasp. She didn't agree, but she knew he was right on one thing. Chances were when these men realized their mistake, they would use it to their advantage to try and catch Scully at the hospital as she rushed to her sister's side. For now, she needed to stay away till they could call off these dogs, call of the "over-reaction" as the British man had termed it, and allow her to get her life back. She needed to get to her sister.

Mulder held up the photo again, pointing to Victor Klemper. "The Gunmen have the information on Klemper. I say we go to him, find out what is going on, what he knows. Then, we'll work from there. In the meantime, send Skinner to your sister's bedside to find out what is going on and let your mother know you are all right."

"Skinner?" She snorted doubtfully as she recalled their last standoff just an hour or so ago. "I don't know how much he really wants to help us."

"He has the DAT tape. He could have turned it over days ago, but he wants to know what's going on as badly as we do, else he wouldn't have let us go. Right now, he's the only friend either of us have."

"Do you trust him?" She didn't think that Mulder did, not after what Skinner had done at the Cumberland Correctional Facility and certainly not after the events of this case.

"No more than I ever have, but I know that even a little bit of friendly support is better than nothing. Something you taught me." Mulder's smile was soft, despite the sadness in his eyes. "We don't have much of a choice. Give him a call now, tell him about your sister. I'm sure he'll go if nothing else to reassure your mother you are fine."

"All right," she whispered reluctantly. "Go get the information on Klemper from the Gunmen. I'll meet you by the car."

Slowly Mulder agreed. He pulled away and returned upstairs to where the Gunmen were waiting. She didn't want to have to face them, even with all of their good intentions, to see the sympathy and those looks that said they already thought of her sister as being dead. Melissa wasn't dead, they hadn't killed her yet. Scully would get out of this, she would bring these men's crimes to light, and her sister would recover from this. She wouldn't let any of this defeat her or Mulder's work. She wouldn't let nameless, faceless men, hiding in the safety of the shadows tear down everything she loved. She just wouldn't allow it.

She pulled her phone from her pocket, and dialed the number for her boss's cell. She had to believe Skinner, despite it all, would do the right thing in the end. Scully needed her mother to know she was all right and Scully needed Melissa to know she was coming for her. All Missy needed to do was hold on, just a little longer.


	129. Shine a Light When It's Gray Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mulder and Scully contemplate the Syndicate and what it is doing.

What did Napier's constant have to do with anything?

"Monsters! Butchers!" Mulder glared back at Victor Kemper's greenhouse, his long legs stretching across the pavement towards his car, angrily covering it in half the time it took Scully to follow. "Progress demands sacrifice? I wonder if that's what he said to the hundreds of Jews he experimented on."

Scully wasn't sure what Mulder was more angry about, Klemper's unwillingness to talk about his horrific past or Mulder's father's involvement in it. "How do you know your father had anything to do with what these men were doing? How do you know he wasn't trapped into all of this because of something else?"

"I don't." He opened his car up and leaning against the door as he faced her. "But my father worked in the State Department. You met the Holveys, you saw Steve before he died. Did he look like a man who was involved in nefarious government secrets to experiment on human test subjects?"

"Neither did your father and for that matter, neither does Victor Klemper. But we can't be certain." Scully's mind raced as she thought of her sister, lying in the hospital, in God knows what condition. "I want to know what they were doing and why they are trying so hard to cover it up. If Klemper was brought over to the US from Nazi Germany and paid handsomely to do it, he was here working on experiments. Klemper specialized on stresses on the human physiology. What does that have to do with the alien virus we know about, the vaccinations, the tests?"

Mulder stilled, staring at Klemper's greenhouse in distant thought as he chewed softly on the inside of his lower lip. "Those bodies I saw in the boxcar, they weren't normal. They looked alien, different. The Nazi experiments were well known to have done all sorts of horrific things, especially studying what made humans what they are."

"Strange since they hardly considered Jews human," Scully muttered darkly as she rounded to her side of the car. "So you believe that these Nazi scientists were over here performing genetic tests on human beings based on their findings from Nazi experiments." It certainly made sense if she understood he underlying pretext for Project Paperclip and Victor Klemper's veiled comments on the subject. "What were they trying to do?"

Mulder frowned at her, face grim as he got into the car. She followed, settling into the passengers seat as he started the engine. "I can't be sure, Scully, but the bodies I saw down there weren't totally human…they didn't have human physiology, they had alien physiology. But they had been human once."

"This is all dependent on if there really is such a thing as aliens at all," she pointed out despite herself. "Just because the virus we found is extraterrestrial in origin, it doesn't mean that there is such a thing as aliens. It could be just as simple as basic physiological changes to the human cell structure based on the virus as it infects people. We have evidence of this in cancer cells and of course HIV. They change the make up of the cells, turning them into something else. Perhaps what you saw down in there in that boxcar was nothing more than the horrible aftereffects of what the virus did to those human beings who were fortunate enough to survive the virus."

"But you were infected, as was I, and we look fairly normal." He pulled the car out of Klemper's greenhouse drive and back out into the roadway. "What if we are thinking in too limited a scope, Scully?"

"Such as?"

"I was just thinking," Mulder paused as his thought drifted for a long moment. "My father joined the State Department when he graduated Harvard, right after the war. My grandfather used his connections to get Dad a nice placement there. It would have been the very department that was working hand-in-hand with the then brand new Defense Department assisting these scientists into the United States."

"Which would explain why your father knew them and how he got involved. But that doesn't explain the virus, or the vaccinations, or the tests, or the disfigured people you claim to have seen."

"What if they are all part of one larger experiment? Aliens or no aliens, Scully, we know that with the rising fear of Communism in the US a the time, the arms race was on between the US and the Soviet Union. Any idea that might broaden the scope of US superiority would have been pushed through, with minimal oversight from Congress. That would include a program to have Nazi scientists and their knowledge here in the US."

"What? To create weapons for the US as a superpower?"

"Or to experiment on alien technology and DNA and hide its existence from the general public."

Scully rolled her eyes, preparing to protest.

"Whether its aliens or not, Scully, you have to admit that the government was covering up something, something they were doing to the citizens of this country, without their knowledge, permission, or oversight and that sort of knowledge getting out would be catastrophic to these men and their programs. They have lived for fifty years in the shadows, plotting and scheming at the highest echelons, one single hint of that DAT tape and what is on it and it could bring that entire edifice to the ground."

"What you are suggesting, Mulder, is anarchy." She shivered quietly, watching him as she thought of the British man. He had said a very similar thing in speaking to her, that he and his compatriots wrote and controlled the future. Was total control any better than anarchy? How very Orwellian.

"Scully, what they did to you, do you want to continue living in ignorance about it? Until now you haven't questioned, but now you know those questions exist. Is it enough for you to sit there, in ignorance of what was done to you, never knowing why it happened, for what reason or even what the result was?"

"And what will I do with the answers I gain, Mulder? Sue the perpetrators? They can't be caught. They can't be prosecuted."

"No," he admitted. "But we can shine a light on their darkness. We can reveal the truth to the world."

"To what end, Mulder? We'll be causing more chaos by revealing this than not? What if we get in there and find the full extent of this and realize that this is so much bigger than just your sister and me?" The full implication of what all of this could mean hit her like a weight between her eyes. "What I'm asking is what if you find all of the truths you are looking for, and it gives you no more answers, no more insight into Samantha, my abduction, your father's death, or Missy? Will all this chaos be worth it in the end? What if we pull the wool off everyone's eyes and it causes more harm than good in the end? Will all of this justify what we get in the end?"

Mulder didn't answer. His jaw worked silently, quietly, but he didn't say a word. Scully wondered for the briefest of moments if he'd had ever thought that far ahead, if his deep seated desire to find the truth had ever taken him down to this junction, this fork in the road. "I'm here by your side, Mulder, wherever you go, and whatever you chose. But after we've both lost so much this week, I have to ask those questions, I have to know just how far you are willing to take this and if you even realize all of the consequences of what your actions just might lead to."

Mulder's silence rang through the car as they continued to drive towards what Scully hoped was West Virginia.


	130. Let's Make A Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully makes a deal.

"I think we should make the deal, Mulder." 

Her voice fell heavy between her partner and Skinner as they sat in the tiny diner in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of West Virginia. She couldn't believe she had said it at first, she thought she had only spoken those syllables in the privacy of her own mind. But as they tumbled out of her mouth as her partner and her boss as they exchanged angry words, she knew she meant it. She wanted to make a deal, she wanted to give the DAT tape to these men in exchange for their lives, their careers, hell for the X-files if need be. She had to get home. She had to see her sister.

They had tried to find the evidence at the Strughold Mining Company. All they found now was more questions, endless questions, questions upon questions. Rows and rows of medical files, on her, on Samantha Mulder, on thousands of nameless, faceless people, identified only by numbers and tissue collection cassettes, all people who were subjected to tests, for which Scully had yet to determine a reason. And clearly they wouldn't find a reason, not before these men succeeded in killing them both. And her sister was in the hospital, possibly dying and she could do nothing but run and hide in the dark, looking for supposed truths and finding only more and more questions. She turned her eyes up to Mulder's stunned and hurt gaze. He thought she sided with him on this and she did, it wasn't that she didn't. But what more could they gain from this course they were taking? 

"Look, those answers mean nothing if we're going to be hunted down like animals."

Mulder turned from her, disappointment surrounding him. Where had his common sense gone to in all of this? Did he lose it on his "spirit walk"? What about any of this the last few days had anything to do with finding justice anymore. Mulder wanted to "crucify" these people now, to punish them for the death of his father and the perceived wrongs. When had they gone from making this right to making this even?

"We are operating so far outside of the law right now, we've given up on the very notion of justice. We've turned ourselves into outsiders. We have lost our access and our protection." They were little better than fugitives at the moment, sitting ducks that these men could kill and make up any story to fit to it. And frankly, Scully realized, she was tired of running, tired of being shot at, tired of feeling afraid.

"What makes you think there's any such thing as justice, Scully?" Mulder's cynicism was startling. The man of boundless faith and untiring belief looking her in the eye and saying he felt that there was no justice in this world. Something about him admitting that hurt and disappointed her worse than his insistence on carrying on this endeavor despite the fact that this just wasn't about him anymore and it hadn't been for a long time.

Apparently Mulder didn't seem to care, because this was about him, his questions, his anger, his vendetta. "Then what good are those answers to anybody but you, Mulder?"

She stung him, she could see it. He was hurt that she wasn't jumping up to agree with him, wasn't standing up to Skinner and giving his deal the proverbial finger to join up with Mulder on his mad quest to find the answers he could do nothing with. "What we found last night…"

"Look, I want exactly what you want." When would he understand that about her? When would he finally accept that she wasn't just here to be the spy or skeptic, the squeaky wheel who always questioned him and undermined him? She was his partner, his equal? This wasn't just about Fox Mulder! She wanted to scream at him.

"I need to see my sister," she uttered simply. He had to understand that. He of all people had to understand that. His eyes glittered as they met hers. He didn't want to, he wanted to continue, he wanted to fight till he had no breath left in him, to shed light on all of this, to tear down these men for what they had done, to destroy them. But to what end? What would the ultimate cost be? It wouldn't return his father or his sister. And it certainly wouldn't make her sister better, or get her any closer to her family. They would be fugitives outside of the Bureau and its protection, far away from the work and resources they even needed. Who would listen to them? Who would care?

Mulder turned from her to Skinner, grasping for his last ditch effort. "I suppose you already tried to make a backup of the tape?"

Skinner looked for a moment as if he wanted to remind Mulder that he wasn't exactly an idiot. "Whoever downloaded those files put a copy protector on them. I couldn't get a hard copy to print, either."

Hope faded in Mulder's face, replaced by doubtful incredulity. "What makes you think they'll even honor this deal?"

"Because, if they don't, I'll go state's evidence and testify or they'll have to kill me, too." Skinner responded without flinching, his chin lifting slightly, defiant. Whether it was towards the men who so often pulled his strings or towards the two of them with their doubts, Scully couldn't be certain. She glanced towards Mulder solemnly, wondering if he believed their boss's resolve and resolution.

Whether he did or didn't, Mulder shrugged, rising from the table and standing. "It's up to you, Scully," he muttered, leaving it in her hands as he made for the door.

He was angry with her for this, for saying no to him, but what choice did she have, really? Melissa could be dying, she had no way of knowing. She watched Mulder stalk out of the door quietly and pace just outside of it. He was so close, just within his fingertips, she knew that, and it killed her to make this decision for him. But what good was having the truth, the knowledge of what was going on and what was to come, if he couldn't use it? If he was killed, or incarcerated, or spent the rest of his life as a fugitive, alone with his knowledge of what was happening, that wasn't any justice she could think of, it was vigilantism. It got them nowhere.

"What do you want, Scully?" Skinner's deep rumble caught her attention again as she glanced first at her boss, then at the Formica table top, scratched and worn with the scraping of thousands of heavy plates over the years.

"I want that deal," she replied softly, guilt gnawing at her as she said it. Mulder would hate her for this, she knew he would, and yet what could she do? Her mother was probably frantic. Her sister…how long could Missy hang on? "What will it take?"

"I'll talk to people and then we'll see. I at least want your names cleared and no further investigations directed at you."

"And our jobs?"

Skinner was slower to answer here. "I think if I can get rid of the rest, the jobs can be worked out. But I'll be on the hot seat for this, Scully and consequently so will the two of you. You've stirred up a lot of trouble with OPR over it, and while it may not end up on your record, they aren't exactly going to forget about it. You two will need to be better than angels for a long time or they will feel no compunction about shutting you two down and tossing you on your asses."

"And you would help, sir?" She wondered once more just where Skinner would fall if pushed. "You know that these men will try again. They know now what we know and they fear that we will find the truth other ways. Do you think they will simply roll over this time and give us what we want without having something to burn us with later?"

Skinner could have lied. Instead he was silent for a long moment, before meeting her challenging gaze. "I don't know, Scully and I can't be certain they won't. But to continue down this path, it's crazy. No support, no help, always on the run from these people. They are as powerful as they claim to be and eventually they will win."

Scully's nodded mutely, her mouth dry as she glanced out at Mulder; shoulder's hunched as she kicked mildly at gravel with his toe. All that he had sacrificed, nearly his life, and she was about to throw it all away. Would he forgive her for it?

"Make the deal, but don't give them the tape until Mulder agrees to it." It was a dangerous compromise, but one she felt Skinner could manage. He nodded in understanding as he patted the pocket she knew contained the tape.

"I'll make some calls and see what I can arrange."

"Thank you." She rose from the table, pausing as she looked down at her rising boss. "If you could, go check on my mother and sister again. I want Mom to know I'm okay and I'll be there as soon as I can."

Skinner nodded in solemn agreement. She smiled briefly at him and made for the door, where Mulder stood, staring into the mountains around them. He didn't look at her as she moved up beside him. From behind her, Skinner exited as well, moving towards his sedan wordlessly. Their boss watched them both as he got inside and quietly pulled out of the parking lot, pulling down the gravel road and back towards Washington. Scully wished for the briefest of moments she were going with him.

"I told Skinner to make the deal, but not to hand over the tape until you agree to it."

Mulder nodded, not happy, but perhaps a little more understanding. "I'm sorry about your sister, Scully." 

She smiled tightly, in appreciation, but wouldn't look up at him. She couldn't look up at him. If she did, she might fall to pieces all over again and frankly she was too tired to try and put herself back together.

"I just need to know if she's going to be okay." Scully sighed as she turned to the car. She felt tired, so infinitely tired. The last two weeks had drained her of everything, her vitality, her determination, her will to keep going. She wanted this to stop. She wanted answers, damn it, about what happened to her and why her sister needed to be shot for it. She wanted this to end.

"Come on," Mulder urged with a light touch to her elbow, jerking his head towards their waiting car. Without saying why, she crawled into the back seat, as Mulder took the wheel. She settled down, fully intending to just lay across the broad, back bench and sleep. How long had it been since she rested properly? Had she slept a full night in the two weeks since Mulder brought the tape into work?

"Get some rest, Scully," Mulder ordered as he pulled the car out and down the same road Skinner had come down. She nodded as she slumped over in the seat, curling her short legs up as she pillowed her head on one of her arms. Sleep was slow in coming, but eventually it did. Her dreams were filled with strange, alien shaped shadows coming at her from the darkness, and men with bullets trying to kill her.


	131. Standing Against Each Other

After all that Mulder had been through at the hands of men like the British stranger standing before them, after all he knew they were capable of, after they shot her own sister, for God's sake, he was still willing to sit there and listen to this man's story? He was buying it, hook, line, and sinker and it didn't matter to him that every drop of what this well-spoken, acculturated man was a lie. You drop the word "alien" in the sentence, and Mulder accepted it without question, without thought.

"Mulder!" Scully glared at the genteel, old man who seemed mildly amused by her indignation. "This man is telling you everything that you want to hear, but it's a fabrication. It is pure science fiction. There were no experiments with aliens."

"Why would I lie to you?" The man smiled at her as if she were a child, and perhaps in his eyes she was nothing more than a foolish child, someone who stood in the way of his group and their plans. She had to begrudgingly admit he did have something of a point. He had been the one to warn her about the attempt on her life at Bill Mulder's funeral. But it hadn't stopped it from happening, from perhaps killing Missy.

"Like you said before," she replied accusingly. "To protect yourself and the continuation of the Nazi agenda. Human tests."

"Why was your file there, Scully?"

She spun on him, eyes blazing, disbelieving that he of all people would question her on this issue. Mulder always respected her opinions, even if he didn't agree. Why would he choose to listen to this man over her, after all of this? Just because of a photo that showed this man and his father sitting together?

"I don't know," she admitted coldly. And she didn't. She had no idea why they would have a file on her in that mine and what they did to her. She wanted to know, desperately. But she wasn't going to buy a fairy tale spun for her by the very men who had chased her these last few days, who had nearly tried to ruin her, who had shot her sister for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"There were current records on file," Mulder persisted.

"Yes, but records of what," she snapped back. They didn't know. They could be medical records, files from her last check up, anything.

"Of abductions," Mulder pushed fervently, that familiar glimmer of certitude in his eyes. "Of abductees."

Aliens and fairy tales! Mulder would throw everything, both of their lives away for his precious belief in alien existence and to hell with Scully's rational, her attempts to hold him accountable, no matter how much sense she made. She was endangering herself and her family for nothing more than Mulder's attempts to verify that he wasn't a screaming lunatic; a crazed madman running in the streets, yelling that the sky was falling. He would choose the lies over her truths and it cut Scully to her center. Glaring at him, she turned on her heels and stormed out of the greenhouse, towards the car, her eyes smarting as she willed herself not to give into the exhausted, frustrated luxury of crying. She couldn't. If Mulder wished to buy into his fantasies, then let him. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her mother, her sister, to beg for their forgiveness, for all of this. What would her father say about her if he could see her now? Would he blame her, as she was sure her elder brother Bill was going to? Would he hold her accountable for whatever damage happened to Melissa? She couldn't blame him if he did. After all, she had made the decisions to stand with Mulder, to involve herself in these cases when she could have walked away day one. Look where it had gotten her; abducted, foreign objects stuck in her body, her job and career put at risk. She was nearly killed herself many times over, and now….

Scully thought of Bill Mulder as she settled herself angrily on the dusty hood of Mulder's car. How very much alike father and son were. She wondered if Bill Mulder had been a young idealist himself, entering into the State Department just out of school, believing he was there to change the world in the wake of World War II. Had he been convinced by men such as the British gentleman, filled with stories about doing good for the country by facilitating these programs, protecting national security by involving himself in efforts to catalogue people's medical records? Perhaps he had thrown himself into the project with zeal, much like his son tended to, because they said all the words he wanted to hear, only asking the important questions when it was too late to back out.

Was that why Bill Mulder's dying words to his only son were "Forgive me?"

Mulder came out of the greenhouse, unsurprisingly looking more confused and perplexed than ever as he crossed to the car. Scully said nothing as he stopped before her, keys in hand, studying them thoughtfully as if he had never seen car keys before. Did the man give him all the answers he sought, or did he still gain more questions?

"Did you find what you were looking for," she asked coolly when he said nothing for several long moments.

"Yes and no," he answered thoughtfully. "He said my sister was taken by these men as insurance to keep my father quiet about this project."

"Insurance?" No matter how angry she was at Mulder, the statement horrified her. "Twenty-two years Mulder isn't insurance and obviously your father had been complicit in their schemes. Why wasn't she returned? Why did they send some clone in her place all those months ago?"

"I don't know," he sighed, returning to studying the keys he turned over and over between his fingers. "He said I was becoming my father, though, a danger, a threat to all they had built. He was warning me."

"Perhaps he was mollifying you, Mulder." Scully stared at the top of his bent, dark head. "You said it yourself, they see you as a threat, someone who will expose their secrets. Perhaps by telling you what you want to hear about aliens, about the projects, about your sister, it's an effort to get you to back down, to shut you up so that they don't have to go to extreme measures and draw more attention to themselves." She thought of what that man had said at Bill Mulder's funeral. "How do you know any of what he just told you is real?"

"Whether it is or isn't, Scully, it's time to go home." Mulder straightened, his long fingers wrapping around the keys in hand. "You need to go home to your mother and sister and I need to go to Boston, to see my father's grave and down to Connecticut to see my mother. I think both of our parents need an explanation as to what their children have been up to these last few days." He slowly moved towards the driver's side of the car. As vibrant and alive as he looked the night he returned from New Mexico, today he looked confused, worn, and sad. As angry as Scully was at him, she couldn't blame him. In the past two weeks he had almost died, had his entire perception of his father turned upside down and had nearly lost everything because of the plotting and machinations of a group who would stop at nothing to tear down Fox Mulder and his beliefs. Whatever Scully felt at this moment, she could guarantee it hardly matched the well of grief and confusion that her partner carried with him right now. Quietly, she got off the hood and moved to the passenger's side, settling in the car beside him silently.

"I'll take you to the hospital, okay?" Mulder pulled out once again from Klemper's greenhouse. Scully nodded, but made no comment.

"You are angry with me for in there, aren't you?"

"She wanted to say no, she wanted to glaze over it for now, until he had dealt with his father, the questions of his work, and what it meant for his search for his sister. But if she said nothing now, would it come up in the future? She doubted it. "Mulder, that man told you what you wanted to hear. I know the history of this type of research, what he was telling you isn't even possible with modern science yet."

"Neither were clones, Scully, and we both know that's possible now, as is gene manipulation using that alien virus." Mulder replied evenly and she knew he had a point. "Those clones, we couldn't explain them at the time, remember. What if they are part of larger, hybridization project, human clones created with hybridized alien DNA, part human, part alien, each an experiment in seeing how the two different DNA sequences could be matched together."

"You said those clones were working on a project that was being destroyed. That shape-shifting man, he killed them all to hide it." Scully still remembered the strange man's fingers around her throat as Mulder's face morphed into someone else.

"Perhaps that's it. They were a project that was going on its own, going rogue. The Samantha clone that was sent to us, she said something about her family not agreeing with what was coming. Perhaps that's what all of this is about, Scully. The government knew about aliens and has been working all of these years to create a hybridized human, using the alien virus to help change the cellular structure of ordinary humans to do it."

"I think, Mulder," Scully began slowly, fixing her eyes on the road ahead of them. "You've been watching one too many old sci-fi movies."

"Why can't you accept that this could be happening, Scully? The pieces are there, they all make sense."

"Because I have to believe, Mulder, that I let my sister get shot for something other than a plot for a bad, Sci-Fi Channel miniseries," she replied evenly, weariness sinking in her bones. "I know they were running experiments, Mulder, with viruses, and perhaps with DNA. I will admit that it is possible our government has been running genetic testing decades, perhaps to continue the Nazi program in the face of the Cold War. But I won't believe the platitudes of a man who admits that everything coming out of his mouth serves the best interest of a group who have pulled out everything to try and destroy and discredit us both the last two weeks. Yet, what I find most upsetting, most disturbing in all of this is that when forced to make a choice, you would chose that man, the one who admits to participating in these atrocities, over the partner who has done nothing but support you through all of this." She finally admitted to the cut that hurt the most. "I've given up everything, Mulder, to stand by you on this, more than I thought was possible. Don't you think I deserve more consideration than that?"

Mulder's silence when she finished filled the cabin. Perhaps she would have been better off shooting him again, she thought sullenly as she glanced at his stunned expression, fixed on the road as she continued to drive. She might have received more of a reaction. She stared at him for long moments, expecting him to protest, to explode and to deny any of what she said was true.

Instead he simply said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, Scully. I would have hoped you realized I cared more for you and your thoughts and opinions than that. Clearly, I got the message wrong."

Now it was her turn to be confused. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"Just take me home, Mulder," she murmured, too tired to argue anymore. "I need to see my sister."


	132. For What We Have Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully contemplates that they have lost.

Three hours she had sat there, simply staring. Her mother had come in twice, tried to convince her to come away, to go home. But Scully still sat, watching the empty bed quietly. The nurses were sympathetic, at least. She heard the head floor nurse say to leave her for now, if they needed the room they would say something to her. So they left her, sitting in the uncomfortable chair, by the bed with no one in it. She couldn't help but think that if she sat here long enough, believed hard enough, Melissa's body would reappear in the bed, her dark, blue eyes turn to her and smile just as they had the last time the two of them had seen each other face-to-face. Her sister was dead. Bright, beautiful, brilliant Melissa was gone and it was all her fault. She hadn't been fast enough. She couldn't fix it. All her prayers, all her medical knowledge in the world couldn't prevent what happened, and it would never have happened if she hadn't gotten in Skinner's car that night, if she had never gotten involved in any of this. All her fault….

She recognized Mulder's footsteps and low, soft voice as he stopped at the nurse's station down the hallway, asking for her sister's room. She knew he would come eventually. Skinner most likely told him, if not her mother. Both probably feared that after the stress of the last few weeks she had probably snapped. But she was fine, really, as fine as she could manage under the circumstances. Perhaps, she realized as he neared the door of the room, she had really been waiting all these hours for him to come, to tell him what had happened, for him to hold her hand and assure her that Melissa didn't hate her for this.

Mulder and Melissa were so much alike, she sighed softly. With a sad smile he remembered that she had once thought of romantically pairing the two of them together. But she had rejected that in the end. Why? She couldn't remember. Funny how silly little thoughts come back to you at times like these. The way she and Missy used to play hopscotch as children. The horrible fights they had over stolen socks and borrowed sweaters. The time Missy bribed one of the boys who liked her to give Scully her first kiss. The apartment they shared together when Scully was in college, the confessions of schoolgirl crushes and adult lovers. Melissa was the only one she had ever spoken to about Daniel. A lifetimes worth of memories flashed before her as she considered that the one person in her life she could always turn to for her deepest secrets was now gone.

And it was all of her fault.

She could feel more than see Mulder's presence as he moved beside her. He stopped, inches from her chair, as she looked up at him finally. His face was hard to read as he first studied the bed and then turned to her seeking answers for his unspoken question.

"It happened three hours ago. She went into surgery and, uh... the damage to her brain was worse than they had hoped." Her throat closed around those words briefly as Mulder knelt beside her chair, his hands reaching for her fingers folded in her lap.

She tried to continue. "Her blood pressure started to rise and, uh... she slipped away. She died for me and I tried to tell her I was sorry but I don't think she'll ever really know." Her voice trailed off as tears welled from her, the first she had shed since they told her mother and herself that they had lost her sister. She squeezed her eyes shut against them. She had cried so many tears of late, tears for Mulder, and tears for Melissa, tears for herself. She was tired of crying, but couldn't seem to stop.

"Oh, she knows," Mulder breathed, reassuringly, his warm fingers holding her hands tightly, as trying to impress on her his own conviction. "Melissa knows."

Perhaps she did at that, Scully sighed. Melissa always did sense these things better than Scully did. "You were right," she finally murmured sadly as she stared back at the empty bed, knowing that the men who did this were out there, beyond her reach, beyond anyone's reach. "There is no justice."

"I don't think this is about justice, Scully." Mulder amended his earlier statement philosophically.

"Then what is it about?"

"I think it's about something we have no personal choice in. I think it's about fate."

Scully studied him for long moments. How very much like Melissa those words sounded. Odd, coming from a man who seemed to thrive on the idea that through his own actions he could change the world. She didn't think Mulder believed in fate or a higher power that directed all life and humanity, but there was a new awareness in her partner. Perhaps it was the spirit walk he experienced on the reservation. Maybe it was everything he had discovered about his father and the project that had cost him personally so much. Mulder had, for better or worse accepted that there were some things that were beyond even his control. That didn't make any of this hurt any less.

"Skinner told me that he talked to you, that you were insistent about coming back to work. Now, if Melissa's death is..."

She knew where he was going with this and Scully shook her head. Much as when her father died, she couldn't sit at home, dwelling on the death of her sister. Not when she could try to fix this, to solve this, to make it better. "I need something to put my back up against."

He nodded, more than understanding. She had suggested the very same thing to him before he left for Connecticut to see his mother, to take time off to deal with his father, but he had refused. Much like herself, Mulder needed to lean on that familiar crutch of work, of the X-files. "I feel the same way. We've both lost so much, but I believe that what we're looking for is in the X-Files. I'm more certain than ever that the truth is in there." There was the old, familiar glow in his eye, that certainty in his quest, the mad, burning belief that she followed, time and time again. And she would still follow, she admitted to herself.

"I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers." She turned to stare at the empty bed yet again. Without a word he wrapped an arm around her gently, pulling her to him as she leaned her head against his chest. No matter their differences, no matter what came between them, in the end he was always there to rescue her, to hold her together, to be there when she needed that comfort from someone who understood all of this infinitely more than even her own family. She sank against him briefly, comforted by the warmth under his shirt and the beat of his heart just under her ear. How easily this almost got taken away from her, she realized, grateful that at least for him his outcome was different than her sister's. She couldn't have born the loss of both of the people she was closest to..

"Fox, I didn't know you were coming!" Maggie Scully's surprise drew Scully away from the comfort of Mulder's embrace, as she sat up quickly, her face flushing as she tried not to look guilty in front of her mother. Really, she thought, her mother of all people would understand her friendship and closeness to her partner. Still she glanced warily between her mother and Mulder, who rose, and offered Maggie his hand.

"Mrs. Scully, I'm so sorry," he began apologetically, but got no farther as her mother wrapped her arms around Mulder's lanky middle as if he had been her own son, full of compassion despite her own grief.

"I'm so glad you are alive, Fox," she murmured, pulling away from him with shining eyes. "When Dana told me…"

It was Mulder's turn to look embarrassed as he pulled from Maggie's arms, glancing hesitantly sideways at Scully. "I'm fine, Mrs. Scully, really."

"And your father," she continued, ignoring his discomfort. "I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Your mother, is she alright?" So recently widowed herself, Scully wasn't surprised that Maggie would think of Teena with concern.

"My parents were divorced," Mulder quantified hesitantly. "But she's doing as well as can be expected."

"And you?" Maggie frowned up at him with concern.

Scully could see the pause in Mulder's response. These last few days had given him much to consider about his father and so little of it did he understand just yet. "Mom, we had better get going," Scully murmured softly, finally stirring from the chair she had hardly stirred from since they took Melissa away to surgery. Her muscles protested against the sudden movement and Scully only now realized just how stiff she was and exhausted. Days in cars, nights with no sleep, not that she thought she could sleep for a long time, not without seeing Melissa's face at least.

"Mrs. Scully, if there is anything I can do for you and Dana during this time, please call" Mulder had sidestepped the subject of his father neatly, that's to Scully's intervention.

"Thank you, Fox." Maggie's smile was grateful, though Scully could see the aching hurt in her mother's eyes, the loss of her child, her eldest little girl. Maggie had aged in those days, Scully realized, as she studied her mother's face. Not knowing if she would have either of her daughters alive had added gray to Maggie's dark hair and deepened the worry lines around her eyes and mouth. She had done that to her mother, she reminded herself, guilt stabbing at her painfully. She placed her sister in danger, and she caused her mother pain.

Mulder's fingers on her elbow pulled her from her dark reverie. "Dana, if you need to take time, to be with your Mom..."

"There's no changing my mind, Mulder," she replied evenly, trying to smile to hide the ache that numbed her insides, making it difficult to breath. "I could say the same for you. They did this to us…both of us. And if you aren't taking time off, I'm not either."

Mulder looked for a moment as if he wanted to argue, but shook his head, smiling softly. "I'll see you when you want to come in, then." His fingers tightened around her arm briefly and then were gone as he reached over to quickly embrace her mother.

"You're more than welcome for the service, Fox. Melissa thought a lot of you."

"And I thought a lot of Melissa," Mulder assured her with aching sadness. "But I think for now, I'll leave it for the family. I think Melissa would understand."

"All right," Maggie nodded as Mulder moved out the door. Scully watched him go, a part of her desperately wishing he would stay. He understood this, all of what she was feeling inside, the hurt, the loss, the personal blame for the loss of someone held so dear, and she didn't want to be alone with this searing wound to her soul.

"I'm glad Fox is alive," Maggie murmured beside her, startling Scully out of her thoughts. She was watching her younger daughter carefully. "I'm glad for your sake he's all right."

"I am too," Scully sighed as she gathered her things. "I am too."


	133. A Sister's Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scully says farewell to a beloved sister.

They spread Melissa's ashes along with Ahab's, in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Bill had smiled and shook his head, commenting that he couldn't understand what it was about the Scully propensity for not being buried in a proper church. Charlie had joked it was because you couldn't keep a Scully down. Maggie had felt it was fitting, as Melissa's wanderlust was so very much like her father's. She imagined that the two of them were off together in some sort of adventure, seeing the world on the waves of the sea. Scully had appeased them all by suggesting maybe they place a headstone in the family church all the same, which everyone agreed was a happy compromise.

Her brothers had said little to Scully about the circumstances of their sister's death. Both of course had just been relieved to see Dana alive, even Bill had held his usual worried looks and not-so-gentle prods about her work in favor of simply hugging his kid sister and assuring her he was just happy she was there and breathing. Not a question was raised about where she was during Melissa's shooting nor why it was it took her two days to even make an appearance at her dying sister's bedside. And as for the extended family, all that they were told was that Melissa was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a home invasion at Dana's apartment, nothing more, nothing less. That didn't soften the harsh truth for Scully in the least. She had to confront it the minute she went back to her Georgetown Apartment. The manager for her building had been the first to greet her with worried concern, stating he had gone in and cleaned the worst of the mess off the floorboards of the entryway, but he would have to replace the carpet for her. He would do it free of charge, of course. He fretted, apologetically, seeing her to her apartment. He was horrified that anything like this had happened at his apartment building and was so sad and sorry to hear of her sister's loss. He filled her with assurances that the owner of the property was already seeking to bulking up the security on the entire building after fears on the parts of other residence after three such breaking and entering incidents had occurred in two years. Scully had mutely listened, and unlocked her door, politely thanking the manager, and shut him out of her apartment. She avoided looking at the dark, rust colored stains that just edged the carpet into her living room, throwing a rug over them for the time being. The carpet was replaced two days later, but she felt the stains still on the floor beneath her feet.

She was the one who packed up her sister's apartment. Maggie had offered, but Scully felt that it was silly to have her mother drive all the way from Baltimore to sift through the memories of her elder daughters life, not when the younger one lived so much closer. Besides, Scully reasoned, so much of Melissa's life was so very personal, so free spirited, so carefree, so many things Maggie might not approve of. Scully knew of several secrets that her sister had entrusted to her and she doubted that Melissa would want her mother remembering her for any of those.

Scully hadn't been to Missy's apartment since the days she had suggested seeing Dr. Pomerantz in the vain attempt to help Scully retrieve her memories of her abduction. Just like it was then, Melissa's home was neat and tidy, her things carefully arranged and portable. She had lived in this apartment less than a year, moving in after she had returned from her year on the West Coast. Melissa, like Ahab, was a gypsy, she could easily pack up and move with the wind, only to set up shop all over again in some new place, some new town, as if nothing had ever happened.

Carefully Scully began the process of gathering Melissa's many things. Household goods and clothing were being sent to her mother's church, though Melissa hadn't been a practicing Catholic in years. One of her dear friends from the small, New Age bookstore she had worked at offered to collect many of her books and treasures she had collected, crystals and Tibetan prayer beads, figurines, things that would go to friends who would appreciate them. Scully managed to keep Melissa's favorite crystal, one she usually kept on her person at all times, as a memento to the many arguments they had on the subject to belief and healing. She slipped it into her pocket, her fingers enclosing about it as she worked over the week, as if physically linking herself to Melissa, her presence in this place.

It was late by the time she finished most of the packing and sorting though all those things she hadn't found a home for. She stood surrounded in the now jumbled and empty apartment, standing in a circle of cardboard boxes and black, plastic trash bags, her shorts and t-shirt grimed with dust and sweat from an afternoon spent relentlessly picking through the memories of her sister's all-too-brief life. Scully stared at it all, eyes unfocused, the weight of the past days and weeks pulling at her as she realized how final all of her work was that day. Her sister was gone and she wasn't coming back.

The knock on Melissa's door at nine o'clock on a Saturday night was unexpected to say the least. She jumped, reaching for the weapon she didn't bring with her, her heart thumping as she mentally kicked herself. More than a week since she and Mulder had been reinstated at the FBI, no questions asked, and still she felt the adrenaline sour in her mouth. Chiding herself for being foolish, she stepped across the bags and boxes to her sister's front door, fully expecting it to be her sister's landlord politely checking in to see if she needed assistance.

When she opened the door, it wasn't Melissa's landlord, however, but Mulder standing there with a worried smile and a bag of what smelled invitingly like Chinese in his hand. He held up the food, a cautious smile spreading across his face. "Hungry yet?"

"How did you find me?" She asked moving out of the doorway, allowing him to step inside with his offering of what smelled like Kung Pao Chicken. Her mouth watered and it suddenly occurred to Scully that she hadn't eaten at all that day. Her stomach protested loudly against this fact as she glanced around the piles that now graced what had been her sister's orderly apartment.

"Intuition, Agent Scully," Mulder murmured, teasingly with a knowing look, the word that had come to mean so much between them in the last few weeks. "Really, I called your house several times looking for you, and when you didn't answer your cell I called your mother."

"Resorting to running to Mom to find me when in doubt?" She smirked as he moved to the couch and coffee table that still sat in Melissa's living room, only partially covered in boxes.

"Well I did promise to feed you when I did it." He smiled, setting down the food and lifting one of the boxes off the end of the couch to make room for both of them to sit. "Kung Pao Chicken and Mongolian Beef, and I got extra fortune cookies just for you."

"Trying to tell me something about my fortunes?" She laughed, reaching for the bag and pulling out a container of rice and cheap, wooden chopsticks.

"Just saying, any good luck we can use at the moment is welcome." He shrugged, opening the Mongolian beef and digging into it with gusto. "Besides, I thought you could use someone to help you finish up." He glanced at the boxes piled around the small apartment with a dubious eye.

"It's mostly done." She ignored his amused snort as she waved her chopsticks around the room. "The landlord is getting Goodwill in here tomorrow to pick up the furniture and most of what is left. Anything else that is either going with me or to Mom, mostly photos and mementos Missy had." Her mouth went dry slightly as she swallowed around the lump of rice in her throat. "Books, pictures, things from when we were growing up. Not much, Missy moved far more than I did as an adult."

"Funny how that works sometimes with siblings," Mulder mused as he glanced in one box closest to the couch, still open and filled with photo albums. Without bothering to ask, he pulled one out and flipped it open. "Looks like she was the photographer in the family."

Scully laughed, glancing at particular volume, taken during one family trip to Disneyland in Anaheim. "Melissa always wanted to capture each memory when we were younger. She said that in the end people move on, places change and fade away, but our memories are what keeps everything fresh and alive for us well into our old age." Her heart ached as she glanced the pictures of the Scully clan as children. Tall, dark-haired Bill, the only brunette, pretty and smiling Melissa, small and sturdy Charlie. And then there was herself, tiny, skinny, knock-kneed, with crooked teeth and freckles across her face.

"I always felt so awkward next to Missy, you know." She pointed to herself in the picture with one tip of a chopstick. "She was always so self-assured, so comfortable being who she was, no apologies, and that was hard being the younger sister of Bill. She always knew how to mollify him. Dad too, but Ahab wasn't hard. I think he understood Missy better than a lot of us did." Better than she did at times, despite how close they were as both young girls and grown women. "She could always walk into a room knowing who she was and what she was doing. Me, I think I've been trying all my life to find the grace and assuredness that Missy was just born with."

"I don't know," Mulder grinned as he studied the picture of her thirteen-year-old self, reluctantly smiling into the camera that she remembered her father holding. "I think you were kind of cute back in the day."

"Thanks." She rolled her eyes dryly. "I don't think cute was the word I was going for then. I don't think it's a word I would go for now."

"Well, now you carry a gun, I'm not stupid enough to call you cute." Mulder flipped the pages other photos of her sister and family.

"Why do you think I carry it?" She smiled as he glanced through photos that in many ways Scully wished her sister had burned. She had been a rather homely girl until she hit sixteen, short, skinny, frizzy haired, and buck toothed. She had insisted on remaining a tomboy up until that point, preferring jeans and t-shirts to dresses and high heels. "Honestly, if I didn't have Missy as a sister, I might have stayed in jeans and tennis shoes for the rest of my life. I think she was the one to talk me into wearing make up for the first time in order to get some boy I liked to notice me."

"Did it work?" Mulder waggled a suggestive eyebrow up at her as he continued to flip.

"No, it turned out he secretly had a crush on Melissa and was trying to use me to help him ask her out." She chuckled, remembering the humiliation in her young heart as she confessed it all to Melissa. She had of course been sympathetic, holding her hand and vowed never to give the boy a second thought. "Looking back, Melissa was there for every major decision in my life. She was the first person I called about men I dated. She lived with me in college. When I decided to forgo medicine to join the FBI, Missy was the one who listened to me and was the one to support my decisions, even when my parents balked at the idea. She was the first person I called about you and the X-files."

"Did you tell her you were working with a crazy man who believed aliens took his sister?"

"Ironically, no. I told her I thought you were cute, though."

Mulder glanced up, obviously startled. "You said I was cute? I thought I was an ass. I was going for ass."

"You were an ass," she acknowledged, picking up the carton of Kung Pao Chicken. "But a cute one."

"How come you can say I'm cute, but I can't say you're cute?" His protest was clearly disgruntled.

"Way it works between men and women, Mulder, live with it." She tried stirring up the carton of chicken to mix up the peanuts inside and failed as several rolled out of the top and across the floor.

"Now I know why you stuck with me after that first case."

"Well, that had nothing to do with you being cute, that had to do everything with the case, with what we saw, and the implant we found in Ray Soames." Her neck tingled as she thought of the implant she found in her own neck. "Despite the whole 'lost nine-minutes' episode, it was that more than anything that convinced me that something was something going on with those kids. That you couldn't be all crazy." 

She glanced at her sister's photo album, still spread across Mulder's lap. "All my life, Missy was preaching to me the very same things you do about being open minded, how science couldn't provide all the answers for everything in this universe, that often there were other thoughts out there, other ideas. We would argue of course, but in the end, we were sisters, no matter how much we disagreed, she was always there, had been since I was born. I suppose I just assumed she would always be there."

In reality, it didn't feel as if she was really gone. Even as she gave away Melissa's belongings, it felt more as if Missy had once again taken off for parts unknown, leaving her more reliable, dependable sister to pick up the pieces, to pack up her things, and put them in storage. How many times had she played that game with Melissa? How many times had she resented it?

"It's just too hard to think that she won't be coming home again from one of her trips to 'find herself'. I keep thinking of all the things perhaps I should have said, that I should have done. I shouldn't have gotten in that car with Skinner that night. I should have waited outside until she arrived. I keep telling myself I could have done something and she would still be alive."

"Dana." 

Mulder's use of her first name stopped her in her rant. She turned towards his sympathetic gaze, filled with concern and infinite understanding.

"You can't spend your life thinking about what you could have done differently or should have done differently. I know, I've spend every night since the night of Samantha's disappearance doing that very thing." He spread his fingers across the laminated pages of Melissa's photo album. "Melissa was right, things change, people leave us, but memories are things we take with us forever, and you have memories, wonderful memories of a sister who loved you and was there for you despite how different you were. Nothing, not a government conspiracy, not the tragedy of how she died, not even your own guilt will ever take away from you the fact that through it all, Melissa loved her little sister. She certainly wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life turning into me."

He shrugged sadly as he closed the photo album on his lap. "As Melissa once told me, death is a natural progression. I think your sister was much more ready to face that step than my father was."

Bill Mulder, who went to his grave carrying secrets that he let ruin his life, secrets he only too late decided to share with the son whose world was shaped by them. Would Mulder ever discover what it was his father had been trying to tell him and how it was his father was involved in the conspiracy that took her sister's life? Would there be any justice for the man who, in his last days and minutes tried so desperately to make amends for the wrongs he committed in the name of his government?

Mulder set the photo album back in the box, grabbing the carton of Chinese food once more. "All things considered, I think Melissa had an amazing life. She lived it on her own terms, no apologizes, no compromises. She had a loving family who supported her no matter what and she had a sister who didn't always agree with her ideologically, but was always there for her when it mattered most, even at the end."

She had been there at the end, Scully realized, and had her chance to say how sorry she was, for all of it. "Do you think she understood? Do you think she forgave me?"

"I don't think she ever blamed you, Scully. I think, more than anything, Melissa wanted you to find your truths and answers. And as long as you never give up that search and continue to always look at the world with wonder, she couldn't ask more for you."

What had been Melissa's last words to her the day before she was shot? "What are you so afraid of, Dana? You afraid you might actually learn something about yourself?" What would she find out about herself, she wondered, thinking of the chip in her neck? What would she find out about what they did to her? What would Mulder find out about his father? And were they ready to handle those answers when they presented themselves?

"So what sort of cookie do you think you'll get?" Mulder stabbed his chopsticks into the carton and reached for one of the small baggies with the crisp, crescent shaped cookie inside.

"Hopefully it isn't 'There will be a tall, dark man.'" She snorted as she caught the package that was tossed her way. "I think I have enough of those in my life."

Mulder chuckled. "Maybe it will be that old curse. 'May you live in interesting times.'"

"Can't be a curse if that's the statement of your life." She pulled open the cellophane and plucked out the pastry. It was crisp and brittle beneath her fingers and she snapped it in half neatly, pulling out the piece if printed paper tucked inside.

"You know, you're supposed to add the words, 'in bed' to the end of any Chinese fortune." His eyes sparkled mischievously. 

She snorted by way of response. "You don't own a bed, Mulder."

"Not one you've seen," he retorted, reading the slip of paper he pulled out of his own fortune cookie. "It takes more than good memory to have good memories." He flipped the paper around deftly in his fingers to face her. "If I didn't know better I would say this was rigged."

"Very to the point." She grinned, reading hers. "There is a true and sincere friendship between you and your friends." She frowned at it, laughing. "Well I would hope that was the case between me and my friends."

"I don't know, I think I can attest to the fact that there is true and sincere friendship." Mulder shrugged. "After all, you were the one who told my mother I was alive when even you believed for a while I wasn't. And you were the one who had the strength to tell me that 'this way leads to madness', when I would have pressed on, despite myself."

She blushed. "Yes, and you were the one who taught me how to believe, even when common sense told me not to. Without the strength of your beliefs, my mother would have had to bury one daughter long ago."

"I suppose then that we are stronger together than we are apart. Is that what you're saying?" He crunched thoughtfully on his fortune cookie, watching her curiously.

"They tried to separate us before a year ago." She lifted her chin defiantly. "How well did that work out for them, again?"

The pride that radiated off of her partner in that moment could light the entire room. He beamed from ear to ear. "They sure as hell didn't know what they were getting into assigning you to work with me, did they?"

"You didn't either," she shot back at him, good-naturedly. "You still believe I'm a spy, taking my little notes, undermining your work?"

He flushed guiltily as he picked at his carton of food. "No, I don't. Do you still believe I'm crazy for believing in government conspiracies?"

"No," she replied softly. "I guess we do make a good team, Mulder."

"Of course we do!" he shrugged, reaching for a container of rice. "Who else would bring you Chinese and pizza when you are down?"

"A good friend who will contribute to my early death due to heart attack and massive weight gain?"

"With all those salads you eat, you'll never gain weight. Besides, who can gain weight running in those ridiculous shoes?"

"Good point." She smiled, glancing over at his carton. "Think I could get some of that Mongolian beef?"

"If you say 'please'." He waggled it in front of him invitingly.

"I could just disarm you for it."

"You didn't bring your weapon, I checked." He raised an eyebrow, impishly.

"Please?" She sighed, as he handed it over, passing him her chicken.

"See, at least Melissa taught you to share." He took the carton of spicy, peanut chicken from her.

"I had to. Melissa always had a good four inches on me all of my life, she could beat me up."

"Still, she was a good sister. She always kept an eye out for you."

"That she did." Scully nodded, smiling softly at the room filled with the best of memories of the sister she had loved dearly. "She was the best of sisters and always will be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends "Seasons: Second", I believe the longest of the Seasons fics I wrote. Thank you all for reading through this giant fic, the kudos and comments are much appreciated.
> 
> I continue to slog through them as I go along and so tomorrow I will begin "Seasons: Third". Thank you all for reading.


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